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JOHNA.SEAVERNS 


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Webster  Family  Library  of  Vetsrinary 
Cumm:ngs  ^rnon!  of  Vetarinary  Med 
Tufts  Univi^ioay 
200  Westboro  Road 


W.    K.    i).   STOKES. 


The  Ri2fht  to  be 


Well  Born 


OR 


Horse  Breeding  in  its  Relation 
to  Eugenics 


By  W.  E.  D.  STOKES 

President  of  the  Pate  hen  Wilkes  Stock  Farm^  Inc. 
Lexington,  Kentucky 


^ 


PRINTED  BY 

C.  J.  O'BRIEN 

22  North  William  Street.  N.  Y. 


f 


Entered  according:  to  Act  of  CongreBs  in 
the  year  1917,  by  W.  E.  D.  Stokes,  in  the 
office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at 
Washington,  D.  C. 


CONTENTS 

Page 

Humans  and  Animals  Are  Governed  by  the  Same 

Laws  of  Heredity 9 

Cause  of  Sex 12 

Contribution  of  Horsemen  to  Eugenics 20 

Influence  of  Great  Sires  in  Founding  All  Breeds .  24 

Sterility    4I 

Education  and  Heredity 50 

Defectives,  Like  Unfit  Animals,  Should  Be  Steri- 
lized     56 

The  Number  and  Cost  of  Defectives 70 

Evils  of  Labor  Unions 78 

The  Labor  Registry 81 

The  Jockey  Registry 83 

Birth    Control 90 

Germs    93 

Child  Labor 96 

How    the    City    of    Churches    Looks    After    Its 

Children  and  Their  Amusements 98 

Some  Races  Are  Backward 100 

Subnormal  Children  in  New  York  Public  Schools  103 
Public  School  Children  of  Seattle  Show  Great 
Intelligence  and  Seattle's  Death-Rate  Is  the 

Lowest 112 

Infant  Death-Rate  in  Seattle  1.44  in  a  Thousand  ; 

in  Manhattan  43.37  in  a  Thousand 114 

Making  American  Citizens 115 

Conservation  of  Brains  Man's  Greatest  Duty. . . .  117 

Evils  of  Social  Diseases 120 

Hereditary  Insanity  from  Disease 126 

Needed  Laws 132 

Things  to  Avoid 134 

The  Importance  of  the  Health  of  the  American 

Hog 135 

Alcohol   America's    Curse;    Its    Effects    on    the 

Unborn 137 

Distillery  Mash  and  Cattle 141 

Motherly  Instincts 145 

Relative  Influence  of  the  Sexes 150 

Laws  of  Heredity  the   Same  in  Man,  Plant  or 

Beast   152 

My  Duty  154 

The  Wizard  of  the  Thoroughbred  Turf 160 


CONTENTS 

Page 

How  to  Establish  a  Family 162 

England's  Strength  Was  Built  Up  By  Younger 

Sons  165 

Some  Races  Possess  No  Elements  of  Improve- 
ment         167 

Crossing  of  Distinctly  Different  Races  Dangerous       170 

Selective  Breeding  Among  the  Jews 173 

Inbreeding  and  Inherited  Talents 177 

Record  Office  and  Research  Foundation 182 

Present  System  of  Marriage  Wrong  in  Theory 

and  Practice. 185 

The  Mixing  of  the  Breeds 189 

Our  Old  New  York  Families  Have  Bred  Out 201 

In  Old  New  York 202 

The  Old  London  Social  Set  Bred  Itself  Out 205 

Plain  Facts 213 

Records  of  Death 216 

Modern  Methods  of  Breeding  Are  Scientific 218 

Grading  of  Men  Who  Are  Candidates  for  Mar- 
riage         222 

Government  Records  Prove  That  75%  of  Our 
Young  Men  Are  So  Inferior  in  Breeding  That 
They   Cannot   Pass   the    Simplest  Army   and 

Navy  Mental  and  Physical  Tests 227 

If  Our  Army  and  Navy  Compel  Examinations  of 
Men  Who  Are  to  Be  Food  for  Cannons  and 
Submarines,  Our  Government  Must  Pass  Laws 
Requiring  the  Same  Kind  of  Examinations 
Before  Marriage  of  Our  Young  Men  and 
Women,    If  Their  Offspring   Are   to   Be  Our 

Future  Soldiers  and  Sailors 230 

America  Needs  Able  Champions  of  Her  Unborn 

Babes 235 

The  Value  of  Registry  Associations 240 

Medical  Men  Must  Make  a  Record  of  All  Cases 

of  Syphilis 245 

The  German  Kaiser's  Contribution  to  Beneficial 

Sciences 246 

Our  Government  Excludes  Illbrod  or  Unsexed 
Animals,  Except  Under  a  Penalty,  But  Wel- 
comes Human  Curs 248 

Conclusion 251 


THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

or 
HORSE  BREEDING  IN  ITS  RELATION 

TO  EUGENICS. 


PREFACE. 

To  the  patriotic  young  men  and  women 
of  our  country,  who  contemplate  marriage, 
and  to  the  research  workers  in  the  field  of 
eugenics,  these  few  lines  on  heredity  are 
dedicated  by  a  horse  breeder,  whose  ex- 
periences have  taught  him  to  realize  that 
the  rights  of  our  unborn  children  are  not 
fairly  or  honestly  protected.  Every  un- 
born child  has  an  inalienable  right  to  come 
into  the  world  free  from  disease,  from 
hereditary  ailments  and  from  mental  and 
physical  defects.  The  Almighty  never  in- 
tended that  any  one  man  or  woman  should 
have  all  the  attainments  and  all  the  graces, 
but  that  each  child  should  have  the  right 
kind  of  inherent  mental  and  physical  abili- 
ties, which,  if  properly  cultivated,  would 
permit  him  or  her  to  well  fill  the  station 
in  life  to  which  each  is  destined. 

5 


6  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

While  I  take  only  a  bird's  eye  view  of 
this  wide  field,  over  which  my  experiences 
have  led  me,  my  earnest  hope  and  prayer 
is  that  I  may  cite  practical  illustrations  in 
the  animal  kingdom  which  will  open  the 
eyes  of  the  young  to  a  clear  understanding 
of  their  serious  duties  to  the  state,  to  them- 
selves and  to  their  offspring.  It  may  lead 
them  to  a  study  of  the  subject  and  to  a 
perusal  of  the  writings  of  some  of  our 
well  known  eugenic  scholars,  like  Dr.  C.  B. 
Davenport,  Dr.  C.  L.  Eeed,  Dr.  David 
Starr  Jordan,  and  others,  who  have  gone 
scientifically  into  the  subject  of  heredity, 
in  its  every  phase,  with  a  microscopic  ex- 
amination. If  they  are  convinced  of  the 
logic  of  these  scientists'  arguments,  let 
them  help  along  the  good  work  by  putting 
into  practice  their  convictions,  and  join  us 
in  the  advancement  of  the  cause  of  eugenics. 

I  feel  certain  that  every  sensible  man 
and  woman,  who  has  given  attention  to  this 
subject,  must  acknowledge  that  it  is  the  all 
vital  question  of  the  hour;  that  it  touches 
the  foundations  of  society  and  the  stability 
of  our  country. 


BREEDING  BETTER  MEN  7 

I  realize  that  I  throw  myself  open  to 
criticism.  Only  the  vital  importance  of 
the  subject  to  the  permanency  or  ruin  of 
our  American  institutions  gives  me  cour- 
age to  express  these  views,  for  I  have 
avoided  even  reading  books  on  heredity  or 
breeding,  except  as  I  now  look  up  refer- 
ences. I  have  never  so  much  as  opened 
MendePs  Essay,  '^Investigations  into  the 
Hvbrids  of  Peas.*^  I  determined  to  search 
out  the  truth  of  heredity,  unbiased  by  other 
views. 

My  sole  object  is  to  lead  my  countrymen 
to  a  vision  of  the  need  of  breeding  better 
men  and  better  women,  each  superior 
mentally  and  physically,  free  from  hered- 
itary ills  and  defects,  which  make  life  a 
burden.  Let  us  breed  men  and  women 
especially  fitted  by  their  mental  and 
physical  qualities  to  best  fill  the  stations  in 
life  which  they  are  to  occupy.  Let  us  all  see 
that  this  problem  of  eugenics,  which  means 
*' well-born,"  is  given  the  public  and  pri- 
vate thought  and  attention  it  justly  de- 
serves. For  it  means  the  elimination  of 
sufferings  from  hereditary  ills  and  the  sav- 


8  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

ing  from  over- straining  the  unfit,  who  at- 
tempt to  do  things  which  they  were  not 
ordained  by  nature  to  perform, — a  **  shoe- 
maker to  his  lasf  and  each  to  his  calling. 
It  means  the  breeding  out  of  weaklings  and 
defectives,  and  the  breeding  in  only  of  the 
fittest  and  the  best.  It  means  the  savins: 
of  our  country  from  moral  and  physical 
decay;  and  the  preservation  of  its  integ- 
rity as  well  as  its  position  among  nations. 

All  this  and  more  I  hope  to  prove  to 
you  has  been  done  in  the  horse  family.  If 
all  this  can  be  done  in  the  horse  family,  it 
can  just  as  easily  be  done  in  the  human,  if 
thinking  people  will  give  heed. 

If  this  can  be  done,  let  us  start  to  do  it 
now — right  now,  not  wait  another  day  or 
hour. 

If  what  I  say  in  this  book  will  only  in- 
duce a  few  thinking  men  to  discuss  these 
matters  with  those  with  whom  they  come 
in  contact  I  shall  feel  that  the  spare  hours 
of  my  vacation  which  I  gave  to  these  lines 
were  well  spent. 

Lexington,  Kentucky,  August  15,  1916. 


THE    LAWS    OF    HUMAN    HEREDITY 


HUMANS  AND  ANIMALS  ARE  GOV- 
ERNED BY  THE  SAME  LAWS 
OF  HEREDITY. 


It  is  my  pleasure  to  own  the  stock  farm 
at  Lexington,  Kentucky,  formerly  owned 
by  its  Colonial  Governor ;  the  birthplace  of 
Americans  greatest  thoroughbred,  ** Lex- 
ington." 

For  a  series  of  years,  I  have  kept  on  this 
farm  a  band  of  well-bred  brood-mares. 
Until  February,  1916,  ^^ Peter  the  Great'' 
was  at  the  head  of  my  stud.  He  is  today 
considered  by  all  horsemen  the  greatest 
producing  stallion  of  any  breed  that  so 
far  has  appeared.  He  has  such  great  po- 
tency that  every  colt  by  him  at  2  years  can, 
if  trained,  trot  a  mile  in  2 :30  or  better.  I 
may  speak  frankly  of  his  greatness,  having 
only  recently  sold  him  in  his  twenty-second 
year  for  $50,000  cash. 

It  has  been  a  source  of  very  great  grati- 
fication to  me  to  see  how  much  this  remark- 
able stallion  has  contributed  to  the  upbuild- 


10  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

ing  of  the  American  Trotting  Horse.  The 
winning  race  horses,  which  have  been  bred 
on  my  farm  in  the  last  few  years,  would 
fill  a  very  long  column. 

I  always  have  believed  that,  if  the*  prob- 
lem of  producing  great  race-horses  could 
be  solved,  much  light  would  be  thrown  upon 
the  question  of  human  inheritance.  I  be- 
lieved this,  because  the  highly  organized 
race-horse  is  more  like  the  high  bred  man 
in  his  physical  and  nervous  constitution 
than  any  other  animal.  The  laws  of  hered- 
ity, which  govern  the  production  of  horses, 
govern  the  production  of  men. 

One  of  the  greatest  of  living  geneticists, 
Professor  W.  Johannsen  of  Jena,  in  his 
great  book  on  Heredity,  published  in  1913, 
states:  ''The  same  Laws  of  Heredity 
govern  man  that  we  find  in  animals  and 
plants.  Any  difference  would  be  incon- 
ceivable." This  is  the  opinion  of  every 
scientist  in  the  world.  It  is  possible  to  get 
the  results  of  heredity  so  much  quicker  in 
horses  than  in  men  that  eighteen  years  of 
horse  breeding  will  give  as  many  genera- 


FEW  SIRES  HAVE  MAGIC  FORCE  11 

tions  of  horses  as  one  hundred  and  fifty 
years  will  give  in  generations  of  men. 
I  have  bred  horses  for  the  knowledge  it 
would  give  me  of  human  heredity,  for  I 
knew  such  knowledge  would  eventually  be 
forthcoming  and  could  be  used  for  the  up- 
building of  the  human  race.  This  has  been 
the  dream  of  my  life.  My  purpose  in  this 
volume  is  to  state  some  conclusions  to 
which  I  have  been  brought  by  my  experi- 
ences of  twenty  years  as  a  horse  breeder. 

The  first  thing  which  the  horse  breeder 
has  to  learn  is  that  only  a  few  horses  out 
of  the  many  which  are  bred  are  of  any  value 
to  improve  the  breed.  At  first,  it  is  almost 
impossible  for  him  to  realize  that  this  is 
a  law  of  nature.  To  the  young  breeder,  it 
appears  that  all  the  sons  and  daughters  of 
a  great  sire  or  of  a  great  dam  ought  to 
have  the  power  of  building  up  the  breed. 
He  has  to  learn  that  the  magic  force  for 
improvement  resides  in  the  very  few.  The 
trotting  horse  breed  has  had  over  fifty 
thousand  registered  stallions  used  in  the 
stud  and  a  far  larger  number  of  registered 
brood-mares.    Only  a  few  score  of  this  vast 


12  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN  v 

number  have  contributed,  or  can  contrib- 
ute, to  the  evolution  of  the  light-harness 
horse.  So  far  as  the  influence  of  the  re- 
mainder is  concerned  in  the  upbuilding  of 
the  trotting  breed,  they  need  not  have  lived. 
Before  I  have  finished  I  shall  show  the 
same  is  true  in  the  human  family. 

CAUSE  OF  SEX. 

Let  us  agree,  for  the  purpose  of  the  fol- 
lowing contention,  that  the  stallion  and 
brood-mare,  under  consideration,  are  bred 
in  the  purple  and  are  physically  perfect. 

It  has  been  found  that  every  stallion  and 
every  brood-mare  has  two  centers,  one  a 
male  center  and  the  other  a  female  center, 
and,  when  mated,  if  the  two  male  centers 
float  over  and  join,  the  offspring  will  be 
a  male-life;  if  the  two  female  centers  join, 
the  offspring  will  be  a  female.  These  cen- 
ters or  tendencies  are  stronger  at  one  time 
to  produce  a  male  and  weaker  to  produce 
a  female ;  at  other  times,  the  tendencies  are 
stronger  to  produce  a  female  and  weaker 
to  produce  a  male.  It  is  the  predominance 
of  these  joint  tendencies,  either  male  or  fe- 


CAUSE  OF  SEX.  13 

male,  which  determines  the  gender  of  the 
colt. 

Let  us,  mathematically,  consider  these 
male  and  female  tendencies  or  centers. 

In  the  stallion  and  in  the  brood-mare, 
each  always  has  100%  of  tendencies.  And 
let  us  consider,  for  the  sake  of  my  combina- 
tions, the  relative  percentage  division  of 
each  stallion's  and  each  mare's  tendencies 
to  be  100%. 

A  =  Stallion  =  100%  tendencies,  male  and 
female. 

B  =  Brood-Mare  =  100%  tendencies,  male 
and  female. 

M  =  Male. 

F  —  Female. 

Then,  we  have  the  following  five  combina- 
tions of  tendencies,  and  as  many  more  as 
you  like,  but  always  bear  in  mind  that  there 
are,  after  breeding,  200%  tendencies  to 
each  offspring,  100%  from  each  parent,  and 
the  gender  of  each  offspring  will  de- 
pend upon  whether  the  majority  percent- 
age of  the  tendencies  at  the  mating  is  male 
or  female. 


14  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

COMBINATION  1. 

A.  ==  100%  M.  +  B.  =  100%  M  = 
200%  A.B.M.  This  combination  pro- 
duces a  stallion  colt  of  the  highest 
order  of  potency  with  a  male  produc- 
ing vigor  in  his  life  germs  of  the  order 
of  ^'George  Wilkes'^  or  ^^ Peter  the 
Great' ^;  a  colt  with  a  power  to  found 
a  family,  if  properly  crossed,  and  to 
stamp  his  individuality  and  his  tem- 
perament on  the  offspring. 
COMBINATION  II. 

A.  =  100%  F.  +  B.  =  100%  F.  = 
200%  A.B.F.    This  produces  -a  brood- 
mare of  the  highest  order  of  potency, 
with  a  producing  vigor  of  the  order  of 
the  ^^ Bertha,"  ^^ Beautiful  Bells"  or 
^'Orianna"  type. 
Any  mathematician  will  tell  you  that  for 
the  stallion  and  the  mare,  at  the  moment  of 
breeding,  each  to  have  100%  male,  or  each 
to  have  100%  female  tendencies  are  very 
rare  combinations.    Great  sires  and  great 
dams  are  few  and  far  between.    Hence  it 
is  hard  to  produce,  even  under  the  best 
conditions,  a  great  stock  stallion  or  a  great 


WORTHLESS   MALES   AND   FEMALES        15 

brood-mare,  and  because  of  this  a  breeder, 
when  successful,  obtains  such  high  prices. 
Some  sires  are  known  as  brood-mare 
sires ;  others  are  known  as  sires  of  sires. 
There  are  only  a  very  few  all  round  sires 
of  brood-mares  and  of  sires.  It  is  well 
known  that  in  some  families  the  boys  are 
endowed  with  the  ancestral  ability,  while 
in  other  families  the  girls  are  the  fortu- 
nate ones.  Very  few  families  exist  where 
both  sexes  have  inherited  distinguished 
ability. 
COMBINATION  III. 

A  ==  60%  M.  and  40%  F.  +  B.  40%  M. 
and  60%  F.  =  100%  A.B.M.  and  100% 
A.B.F. 

This  combination  will  produce  either 
a  male  or  a  female,  as  it  generally  de- 
pends upon  which  tendencies  are  the 
more  vigorous,  and,  if  it  be  a  male,  it 
will  be  useless  as  a  sire,  and  if  it  be  a 
female,  she  will  be  hard  to  get  in  foal ; 
and  so  far  as  the  benefit  to  breeding  is 
concerned,  will  be  about  worthless, 
whether  male  or  female.  This  com- 
bination shows  to  a  breeder  how  some 


16  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

brothers  and  sisters  of  great  stallions 
or  brood-mares  vary  in  their  value  as 
producers.  If  all  stallion  colts  of  this 
combination  were  castrated  and  all 
fillies  from  this  combination  were 
never  bred,  it  would  be  a  good  thing. 
In  every  big  sales  stable,  you  will  find 
horses  called  ** Dummies.''  They  come 
from  this  combination,  and  are  easily 
known  by  their  lack  of  intelligence  and 
physical  vitality;  and  among  humans, 
we  have  our  '^Sissie''  and  our  **  Tom- 
boy.'' 

A  **Sissie"  has  a  soft  voice  and  pre- 
fers to  play  with  girls.  As  a  general 
thing,  neither  have  any  great  longe- 
vity. A  *  *  Tom-boy  "  ha  s  a  man 's  voice, 
and  prefers  to  play  with  boys.  She 
often  has  coarse  hair,  sometimes 
growing  in  bunches.  How  many  chil- 
dren have  vou  ever  known  a  **Sissie" 
or  *^ Tom-boy"  to  have?  I  confess  my 
information  in  this  particular  is  very 
meager,  but  it  is  to  the  effect  that 
neither  produce  to  any  great  extent. 
Dr.  Robert  T.  Morris,  in  '*  Microbes  and 


BREEDING    SCIEtolFICALLY  17 

Men/'  has  stated  a  law  of  cnltnral  limita- 
tions ;  that  culture  is  artificial,  rather  than 
natural.  Nature  makes  a  strong  effort  to 
preserve  a  mean  or  average  type.  The 
animal  or  human  family  degenerates  and 
passes  away,  chiefly  through  the  direct  and 
indirect  action  of  microbic  enemies,  which 
assail  a  weakened  constitution.  Humans 
have  not  as  yet  taken  the  lesson  to  them- 
selves ;  horsebreeders  and  fish-growers  are 
the  only  ones  to  take  up  the  question  of 
breeding  by  impregnation  in  a  scientific 
way. 

COMBINATION  IV. 

A  =:=  60%  M.  and  40%  F.  +  B.^  = 
60%  M.  and  40%  F.  =  120%  A.B.M. 
and  80%  A.B.F. 

This  combination  will  produce  a  male 
colt  whose  ability  and  vigor  in  the  stud 
will  be  in  the  relative  proportion,  as 
200  A.B.M.  is  to  120  A.B.M. 

COMBINATION  V. 

A.  =  40%  M.  and  60%  F.  +  B.  =  40% 
M.  and  60%  F.  =  120%  A.  B.  F.  and 
80%  A.B.M. 


18  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

This  combination  will  produce  a  fil- 
ly whose  vigor  and  ability  as  a  brood- 
mare will  be  in  the  relative  propor- 
tion as  200  A.B.F.  is  to  120  A.B.F. 

At  the  time  of  mating,  a  marked  impres- 
sion is  made  on  the  colt  if  both  stallion  and 
brood-mare  are  in  perfect  condition.  I  am 
satisfied  that  greater  and  better  colts  will 
be  produced  if  the  brood-mare  has  a  colt 
every  other  year,  or  even  every  third  year. 
It  would  give  nature  ample  time  to  restore 
strength  and  vitality  exhausted  or  given 
to  the  offspring. 

In  every  particular,  as  aboved  noted, 
whatever  holds  good  of  the  horse,  holds 
good  of  the  human. 

The  day  is  not  far  distant  when  some 
scientists  will  discover  how  to  regulate  the 
tendencies  which  determine  sex;  and  par- 
ents will  only  have  to  make  their  wishes 
known  to  have  them  realized. 

For  three  years,  we  have  daily  studied 
the  question  of  sex  control  at  the  Patchen 
Wilkes  Stock  Farm,  and  have  tried  out 
every  claimed  method,  finally  having  dis- 


REGULATING  SEX  19 

carded  each  and  every  such  known  scheme 
for  regulating  sex. 

We  have  noticed,  however,  that,  at  cer- 
tain seasons,  there  is  a  predominance  of 
male  colts  in  our  district  and,  at  another 
time,  a  predominance  of  female  colts.  At 
the  beginning  of  the  stud  season,  we  are 
inclined  to  believe  that  male  colts  predom- 
inate, but  we  have  no  positive  proof.  We 
sometimes  think  that  if  a  mare  is  bred  di- 
rectly after  she  has  come  in  season  male 
colts  will  predominate,  and  as  the  season 
advances  female  colts  will  predominate. 
The  difficulty  lies  in  the  fact  that  a  breeder 
can  not  always  definitely  ascertain  the  ex- 
act date  when  a  mare  commences  to  come 
in  season. 

I  have  no  doubt  that  I  could  breed 
stallions  and  mares  to  produce  only  male 
or  only  female  colts  by  a  continuous  breed- 
ing from  sires  and  dams  coming  from 
families  that  had  produced  only  male  or 
femiale  colts.  In  this  way  I  produced  a 
herd  of  sheep  that  produced  only  twins  or 
triplets.  Whenever  you  find  twins  in 
humans,  you  will  generally  find  an  hered- 


20  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

itary  tendency  to  twins  on  the  mother's 
side. 

I  have  noticed,  however,  that  the  first 
colt  of  a  young  well  matured  mare  of  five 
or  six  years  old  is  generally  a  stud  colt, 
especially  if  she  catches  at  first  mating; 
and,  if  a  mare  aborts  or  loses  her  colt  at 
suckling  time,  that  the  next  colt  is  generally 
a  stud  colt.  I  sometimes  have  thought  that 
the  secretions  from  the  cells  that  nourish 
the  germ  cells  govern  the  inclinations, 
either  male  or  female.  When  this  discov- 
ery is  once  made,  we  shall  have  only 
full  male  and  full  females  of  the  I  and  II 
combinations  born,  or  close  to  them;  no 
more  ** sissies,"  no  more  *Hom-boys,"  and 
our  vigor,  as  a  nation,  in  mental  and  phys- 
ical stamina,  will  be  on  the  ascendency, 
provided  laws  are  passed  preventing  the 
marriage  of  defectives  and  diseased  per- 
sons. 

CONTRIBUTION  OF  HORSEMEN  TO 

EUGENICS. 

To  the  Trotting  Horsemen,  more  than 
anyone  else,  is  due  the  advancement  this 


HORSEMEN  AND  EUGENICS       21 

country  is  now  making  in  eugenics.  It  was 
Governor  Lei  and  Stanford,  ov/ner  of 
*^ Electioneer,"  and  the  great  Palo  Alto 
Farm,  who  placed  David  Starr  Jordan  at 
the  head  of  Stanford  University,  with  un- 
limited funds,  to  carry  out  his  ideas  on 
breeding  and  heredity. 

The  trotting  horse  indutsry  has  in  the 
United  States  and  Canada,  perhaps,  a 
million  or  more  persons  financially  or 
otherwise  interested  in  its  success.  It  has 
six  or  seven  weekly  papers  entirely  de- 
voted to  its  interests,  and  in  every  big 
city  there  are  one  or  more  daily  papers 
that  give  a  column  or  part  of  a  column 
each  week  to  matters  relating  to  the  trot- 
ting horse. 

The  Grand  Circuit  consists  of  about 
fourteen  large  tracks.  In  addition  to 
these,  there  are  over  900  other  tracks  with 
their  smaller  circuits  which  work  inde- 
pendently of  each  other  and  of  the  Grand 
Circuit.  There  are  several  thousand 
people  who  go  through  the  Grand  Circuit 
every  year  and  thousands  more  that  attend 
the    various    smaller    circuits,    half-mile 


22  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

tracks  and  fair  tracks  throughout  the 
country.  There  are  three  places  where, 
each  year,  from  two  to  three  large  trot- 
ting horse  auction  sales  are  held.  At  these 
tracks  and  auction  sales,  you  meet  the 
richest  and  the  poorest,  the  most  distin- 
guished jurists,  railroad  presidents,  mer- 
chants, ministers,  priests,  and,  in  fact, 
representatives  of  all  trades,  mingling, 
hobnobbing  and  discussing  horse  interests 
and  breeding  with  the  most  ordinary  un- 
educated men  on  even  terms.  There  is  a 
spirit  of  comrade-friendship  among  trot- 
ting horsemen  that  is  marvelous.  Such  a 
phenomenon  does  not  exist  in  any  other 
organization  of  business  in  the  world.  I 
have  a  list  of  fifteen  thousand  men  who 
are  in  the  habit  of  attending  these  various 
auctions  and  bidding. 

The  trotting  horse  breeders'  associa- 
tions and  these  newspapers  have  their 
various  futurity  stakes,  which  generally 
amount  to  several  hundred  thousand  dol- 
lars and  are  raced  off  every  season. 
All  this  gives  competition  and  stimulates 
the  breeding  of  good  horses.    "With  it  all 


E.   H.   HARRIMAN;   J.  D.   ROCKEFELLER     23 

comes  a  knowledge  of  heredity  the  trans- 
mission of  tendencies,  an  insight  into  the 
benefits  of  good  ancestral  histories,  and  the 
methods  of  combining  the  good  qualities  of 
different  horse  families  by  crosses  and,  in 
the  same  way,  eradicating  their  failings. 

So  is  it  any  wonder  that  trotting  horse- 
men should  be  the  first  to  notice  the  utter 
neglect  given  to  the  breeding  of  humans! 

It  was  through  the  late  E.  H.  Harriman, 
the  owner  of  ^^Stamboul"  and  **John  R. 
Gentry,'*  that  we  have  the  Advanced 
School  of  Eugenics  and  Heredity  at  Cold 
Spring  Harbor,  Long  Island,  New  York; 
and  through  his  widow,  the  patroness  of  the 
Goshen  Track,  we  have  the  priceless  Eu- 
genic Bureau,  which  thinking  people  are 
now  beginning  to  appreciate. 

It  is  to  John  D.  Rockefeller,  the  owner 
of  *^Cleora*'  and  ^  ^  Midnight,  * '  and  breeder 
of  various  other  horses,  that  we  are  indebt- 
ed for  the  Rockefeller  Institute  of  Research 
and  the  Rockefeller  Foundation,  both  of 
which  are  bound  to  be  of  the  greatest 
good  imaginable  to  the  health  and  happi- 
ness of  the  country  and  for  the  stability  of 


24  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

this  nation.  The  thanks  of  a  nation  should 
go  lip  to  Mr.  Eockefeller  for  his  noble  and 
generous  gifts. 

I  do  not  know  whether  or  not  Andrew 
Carnegie  ever  was  interested  in  horses,  but 
his  greatest  monument  will  be  the  Carnegie 
Institute  for  Experimental  Evolution  at 
Cold  Spring  Harbor,  Long  Island,  which  is 
a  branch  of  the  Carnegie  Institution  of 
Washington,  D.  C.  This  great  research  in- 
stitution has  an  endowment  of  $25,000,000. 

INFLUENCE    OF    GREAT    SIRES    IN 
FOUNDING  ALL  BREEDS. 

The  Orloff  Trotter  was  founded  by  Count 
Alexis  Orloif  Tchestmensky.  In  1775,  he 
imported  from  Greece  a  horse,  ^*Sme- 
tanka,'*  an  Arab  or  Barb,  and,  when  mated 
to  a  cart-mare,  produced  *'Polkan,"  who, 
from  a  Dutch  mare,  got  ^^Barrs,'^  in  1784. 
From  three  sons  of  '^Barrs,"  all  Or- 
loff  Trotters  have  sprung. 

1.  The  dam  of  the  first  son  was  by  an 
Arab. 


INFLUENCE    OF    GREAT    SIRES  25 

2.  The  dam  of  the  second  son  was  by  an 
English  Thoroughbred. 

3.  The  dam  of  the  third  was  by  a  son  of 
^  ^  Smetanka. ' ' 

Here,  we  see  that  just  one  horse  estab- 
lished the  great  Orloff  Stud  Book — ^whose 
registry  numbers  at  least  1,000,000. 

The  founder  of  the  American  trotting 
horse  breed  was  **Hamiltonian  10."  The 
number  of  his  sons  is,  perhaps,  600.  Out 
of  these  600,  four,  alone,  have  made  sub- 
stantial contributions  to  speed.  These  four 
are:  ''Happy  Medium,"  ''Electioneer," 
"George  Wilkes"  and  "Strathmore." 
The  other  sons  produced  numbers,  but  not 
horses  of  value.  An  interesting  fact  con- 
cerning the  four  distinguished  sons  is  that 
their  greatness  was  sent  on  through  only 
one  or  two  sons  of  each,  except  in  the  case 
of  "George  "Wilkes,"  who  had  four  great 
producing  sons. 

"Pilot  Medium,"  who  carried  the  on- 
breeding  power  of  "Happy  Medium,"  con- 
centrated all  the  great  qualities  stored  in 
him  into  one  son,  "Peter  the  Great." 
' '  Happy  Medium, ' '  with  the  aid  of  the  dams 


26  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

of  *  ^  Pilot  Medium ' '  and  ^ '  Peter  the  Great, ' ' 
concentrated  in  liis  famous  grandson  such 
qualities  of  real  greatness  as  intelligence, 
early  maturity,  speed,  and  early  speed, 
great  lung  capacity,  soundness  of  bone, 
wind,  tough  tendons,  stamina,  great  vital- 
ity, great  endurance,  beauty  of  conforma- 
tion and  the  ^^do  or  die  spirit — '^  which 
they  particularly  show  in  long  drawn  out 
races. 

*^  Peter  the  Great  ^^  has,  today,  a  stud  fee 
of  $1,000  and  to  his  harem  come  more  mares 
than  he  can  cover.  Other  trotting  stallions 
stand  as  low  as  $1  and  get  no  patronage. 

'  *^ Electioneer,''  through  his  matchless 
grandson,  ^'Bingen,''  who  sold  for  a  large 
sum  when  18  vears  old,  contributes  to  the 
trotting  breed  of  horses  early  maturity, 
beauty  of  conformation  and  extreme  and 
early  speed.  ^^ George  Wilkes''  was  able 
to  distribute  his  heritage  of  greatness  to 
four  lines  of  descendants,  as  follows :  ^  ^  Bar- 
on Wilkes,"  ^^ Alcyone,"  *^ Onward"  and 
**  William  L."  The  characteristics,  which 
he  handed  on  to  these  four  important 
strains  of  trotting  horse  blood,  are :  intelli- 


LONGEVITY  IN  ANIMALS  27 

gence,  speed,  endurance,  muscular  develop- 
ment, hard  bone,  strong  tendons  and  good 
wind. 

Strathmore's  influence  in  the  breed  has 
been  mainly  in  the  quality  of  brood  mares 
which  trace  to  him.  He  gave  to  his 
progeny,  stamina,  hard  bone,  vitality,  lon- 
gevity and  toughness,  while  his  greatest 
son,  ^ ^  Steinway, ' '  who  was  a  world's  cham- 
pion trotter  at  three  years  of  age,  was  used 
successfully  in  the  stud  until  he  was  well 
past  the  meridian.  His  son,  *^  Charles 
Derby,''  until  he  was  28  years  old,  was 
possessed  of  great  potency.  Longevity 
characteristics  appear  in  certain  strains  of 
animals,  just  as  we  notice  them  in  certain 
families  among  humans. 

All  the  English  thoroughbred  horses 
trace  in  their  male  ancestry  to  three  great 
sires.  These  three  are, — ^^Matchem," 
''Herod"  and  ''Eclipse."  They,  like  the 
trotting  horses,  sent  on  their  elements  of 
greatness  through  one,  two  or  three,  at 
most,  of  their  sons  and  daughters.  The 
laws  of  heritage,  it  seems,  decree  that  in 
the  evolution  of  a  breed  improvement  is 


28  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

not  due  to  the  many  offspring  of  a  dam  or 
sire,  but  to  some  one  or  two  of  the  progeny, 
as  I  have  explained  under  Combination  1. 
Great  thoroughbred  sires  have  sold  for 
$200,000,  and  their  stud  service  is  $1,500, 
while  others  stand  as  low  as  $1. 

There  is  no  better  illustration  of  great- 
ness descending  in  a  single  line  than  the 
recent  establishment  of  the  American  Sad- 
dle Horse.  The  foundation  sire,  ^^  Den- 
mark," succeeded  in  contributing  but  one 
son.  He,  ^'Gaines  Denmark,*'  was  out  of 
a  *^ Cock-Spur'*  mare,  and  of  all  his  nu- 
merous sons,  the  one  he  got  by  being  mated 
with  another  ^^ Cock-Spur"  mare  is  the  im- 
portant one.  His  name  would  not  even 
have  been  entered  in  the  Stud  Book  had  it 
not  been  for  his  son,  '*  Washington  Den- 
mark. * '  The  entries  in  the  Stud  Book  trace 
back  to  ^^  Gaines  Denmark,"  through 
*  *  Washington  Denmark. "  ^  ^  King  William  * ' 
carried  the  greatness  of  his  sire,  *' Wash- 
ington Denmark,"  and  he  gave  it  all  to 
** Black  Eagle,"  and  ^' Black  Squirrel"  car- 
ried the  good  points  of  his  sire,  **  Black 
Eagle,"  and  was  able  to  pass  on  his  great- 


GREAT  FUTURE  DEMANDS  GREAT  PAST  29 

ness   to   two   sons,   ''Chester   Dare''   and 
*' Highland  Denmark. '^ 

A  great  future  demands  a  great  past  in 
breeding  horses,  as  well  as  in  breeding  hu- 
man beings.  That  is  to  say,  if  your  ances- 
tors are  not  the  best,  your  family  name  will 
disappear  from  the  honor  roll,  unless  you 
mate  your  offspring  well  and  continue  to 
mate  them  well. 

You  do  not  build  a  great  building  with- 
out an  expert  master-mind  to  advise  and 
direct  you.  You  cannot  expect  to  build  up 
a  healthy,  brainy,  enduring  family  unless 
you  have  a  competent  expert  to  advise  you. 
What  do  young  people  either  know  or  care 
about  racial  improvement  at  that  stage  of 
the  game,  until  some  day,  when  it  is  too 
late,  they  are  awakened  by  the  sad  results 
of  their  own  ignorant  marriages  1  Hence  it 
is  the  duty  of  all  parents  to  have  their  chil- 
dren instructed  in  the  fundamental  facts  of 
heredity  and  reproduction. 

Look  at  the  trotting  horse  families  that 
were  once  great  and  are  now  dead  and  for- 
gotten; where  are  the  ''Blue  Bulls," 
the   *' Champions,"   the    "Bashaws,"   the 


30  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

**Eoyal  Georges/'  the  ^'Messenger  Du- 
rocs,'*  etc  J  When  the  crucial  test  of 
reproducing  speed,  stamina  and  intelli- 
gence, was  applied,  each  failed.  Each 
family  went  out  of  existence  because  their 
offspring  began  to  show  the  undesirable 
qualities  of  their  ancestors,  as  errors  had 
been  made  in  the  crosses. 

Confucius,  of  old,  was  a  great  scien- 
tist. When  he  discovered  that  ances- 
tral traits,  tendencies,  facial  and  bodily 
characteristics  had  been  inherited  by  his 
own  generation  from  generations  that  lived 
a  thousand  years  before  and  were  then  be- 
ing passed  on  to  future  generations,  it  was 
too  great  a  mystery  for  him  to  fathom,  so 
he  instructed  his  followers  to  cultivate  an- 
cestor worship — and  the  Chinese  practice 
it,  even  today. 

Stallions  and  mares  sometimes  cast  back 
to  an  undesirable  ancestor;  and,  again,  to 
a  desirable  ancestor. 

Whenever  my  stallion  *^ Onward''  had  a 
chestnut  colt,  I  would  be  awakened  at  night 
by  the  brood-mare  man,  to  be  told  that  a 
** Champion'*  was  born.     That  uneducated 


THE   INTELLIGENT  BREED   OFFSPRING     31 

colored  man  knew  by  instinct  that  a  great 
ancestor's  sonl  had  come  back  to  earth  in 
flesh  and  blood. 

"VYhen  you  see  a  man  of  marked  potency, 
energetic  of  mind  and  body  and  of  distin- 
guished family  features,  carrying  well 
along  in  life  the  high  breeding  of  a  dis- 
tinguished ancestor,  you  may  be  reasonably 
sure  that  it  is  a  case  of  atavism,  and  he  is 
very  close  to  Combination  No.  I. 

Some  people  try  to  raise  children;  others, 
who  know  their  business,  hreed  tJiem. 
They  carefully  select  the  cross  to  mate 
with  what  they  lack  in  their  own  make-up, 
and  to  strengthen  their  own  good  quali- 
ties. They  know  the  ^^ Golden  Cross''  be- 
cause they  have  studied  the  pedigrees  of 
the  man  or  woman  to  whom  they  were 
mated;  the  good  points  and  the  failings 
of  each  other's  ancestors  were  well  con- 
sidered. The  horse  that  carries  a  pedigree 
finally  proves  his  worth  by  the  perform- 
ances of  his  get.  Each  succeeding  cross 
or  breeding  or  in-breeding  increases  the 
speed  quality  or  the  intelligence,  the  stam- 
ina and  value  of  the  offspring,  as  it  moves 


32  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

forward  from  the  parent  stem,  until  a 
time  comes  when  we  need  an  outcross,  be- 
cause of  too  much  in-breeding.  What  is 
true  of  the  horse  is  true  of  the  human. 

Some  years  ago,  people  with  more  imag- 
ination than  good  common  sense  went  to 
Arabia  to  get  an  Arabian  horse  to  cross 
back  on  the  English  thoroughbred.  The  re- 
sult was  an  absolute  failure,  because  the 
English  thoroughbred,  in  good  breeding, 
had  moved  ahead  a  thousand  years. 

In  raising  trotters,  breeding  back  to 
mares  carrying  thoroughbred  blood,  has 
given  us  our  greatest  and  fastest  trotters 
of  the  day.  In  the  human  family,  breed- 
ing back  to  families  who  carried  the  best 
ancestral  blood,  has  given  us  the  greatest 
men  of  the  day. 

The  family  is  stronger  than  the  individ- 
ual. That  is  to  say,  the  handsomest  finest 
looking  man  of  no  blood  and  no  ancestry 
will  never  sire  children  equal  to  even  the 
more  ordinary  individual  of  good  blood  and 
good  ancestry.  I  once  drove  forty  miles  to 
purchase  ** Wiggins,'*  a  great  son  of 
'* Aberdeen,"  as  I  needed  certain  of  his 


THE   SIRE   PLANTS  THE   SEED  33 

hereditary  qualities  to  combine  in  my 
crosses.  One  look  at  him  was  enough;  no 
one  but  an  expert  breeder  would  send  his 
mares  to  this  stallion's  court.  Rather  than 
have  such  a  looking  horse  on  my  farm,  I 
decided  to  pay  the  stud  fee. 

The  sire  plants  the  seed,  and,  if  that  seed 
comes  from  a  failure,  you  may  expect  a 
failure.  If  it  comes  from  a  successful 
healthy  man  of  good  parentage,  good  an- 
cestry, and  devoid  of  bad  inclinations  or 
tendencies,  you  may  expect  a  successful 
child.  In  breeding  horses  we  learn  what 
the  families  of  the  dams  have  produced  and 
we  follow  them  in  the  male  line  and  use 
mares  from  families  producing  health, 
speed  and  good  traits;  and  one  generally 
does  not  make  failures,  unless  there  is  too 
much  inbreeding,  and  then  an  outcross  is 
needed. 

If  the  same  rule  were  followed  in  the 
human  family,  we  should  have  continual 
successes  and  the  man  who  works  hard  to 
have  his  name  handed  down  to  posterity, 
if  he  only  lived,  would  be  gratified  to  see 
the  results. 


34  "THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

The  present  day  breeds  of  Dairy  Cows 
owe  their  profitable  production  to  a  few 
family  strains,  all  on  the  sire  side.  A 
striking  example  is  to  be  found  of  the  in- 
fluence of  the  prepotent  sire  among  the 
^^Holstein-Freisian'*  breed.  In  this  breed, 
only  seven  cows  are  on  record  as  producing 
forty  pounds  of  butter  in  seven  days.  All 
seven  are  descended  from  ^^Netherland 
Prince."  There  are  41  cows,  whose  seven 
day  record  is  35  pounds  of  butter.  39  of 
these  trace  their  ancestry  to  ^^Netherland 
Prince. ' '  100  cows  of  this  strain  have  rec- 
ords of  33  pounds,  and  97  of  them  go  back 
to  *^Netherland  Prince."  473  cows  have 
been  able  in  a  week  to  make  the  enviable 
record  of  30  pounds.    463  of  them  claim 

*^Netherland  Prince"  as  a  near  or  remote 
ancestor. 

So  far  as  the  improvement  of  the  breed 
is  concerned,  the  facts  stated  show  that  the 
evolution  largely  centers  around  *^  Nether- 
land  Prince"  and  his  get.  Two  other  facts 
should  be  remembered  in  the  great  change 
which  has  been  made  in  the  productive 
powers   of  the   dairy   cow  by  intelligent 


EARLY   MATURITY   PROFITABLE  35 

breeders  in  the  last  forty  years.  One  is 
that  their  maturity  has  been  secured  at  an 
earlier  age.  A  cow  of  today  comes  into 
profitable  production  nine  or  twelve  months 
earlier  than  some  years  ago,  and  steers 
are  marketable  at  one  and  two  years  in- 
stead of  four  or  five.  Think  of  the  im- 
mense saving  to  the  farmer  and  cattleman ! 
This  valuable  trait  has  been  evolved  by 
the  power  of  sires  prepotent  for  early  ma- 
turity. The  other  fact,  which  must  be  men- 
tioned, is  that  the  evolution  of  the  dairy 
cow,  by  the  judicious  conservation  of  pre- 
potent strains,  gives  dairymen  a  greater 
profit  on  their  investment  and  maintenance 
than  their  predecessors  enjoyed.  The  same 
is  true  of  cattle  for  beef.  Today,  cattlemen 
use  bulls  one  and  two  years  old,  where  they 
formerly  used  four  or  five  year  old  bulls. 
Careful  breeding  from  early  maturing  an- 
cestors brought  about  this  early  maturity. 
It  costs  more  to  feed  and  keep  a  cow  pro- 
ducing 20  pounds  of  butter  per  week  than 
it  does  to  feed  a  cow  that  yields  5  pounds ; 
but,  there  is  a  larger  ratio  of  profit  to  the 
^dairyman  in  the  20-pound  cow;  and  a  cer- 


36  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

tain  loss  in  the  5-ponnd  one.  Great  bulls 
of  the  **Netherland  Prince''  strain  sell  for 
from  $15,000  to  $25,000,  others  for  the  price 
of  beef;  one  commands  a  stud  service  of 
$100  and  others  go  begging  at  $1.00.  This 
is  true  of  the  various  other  breeds  of  cattle, 
of  the  ox  type,  that  pull  heav^^  weights. 
That  strain  comes  from  its  one  sire  that 
produces  great  strength. 

The  best  example  of  improvement  by 
breeding  in  domestic  animals  is  shown  in 
the  great  change  brought  about  in  the  hog. 
The  despised  swine  of  the  ancients  and  the 
wild  fierce  boar  of  the  forest  have. yielded 
to  the  influence  of  breeding  and  care  as  few 
animals  have  done.  This  is  true,  because, 
as  improved  today,  all  that  is  required  of 
the  hog  is  that  he  be  fed  and  be  converted 
into  pork.  No  intelligence,  endurance  or 
foraging  powers  are  required  of  him.  To 
eat,  grow  and  grunt  is  the  end  of  his  exist- 
ence. By  breeding  and  feeding,  the  mar- 
ketable age  of  the  hog  has  been  cut  from 
24,  18  or  15  months,  down  to  as  low  as  7  or 
8  months.  I  believe  that  the  hog  is  the  best 
bred  of  any  domestic  animal  and  the  one 


WELL-BRED   AMERICANS  CALLED  HOGS         37 

from  wliich  the  farmer  is  gaining  the  most 
profitable  returns  as  the  result  of  good 
breeding.  Once,  I  used  to  be  indignant 
when  foreigners  referred  to  Americans  as 
^'hogs.'^  At  last,  I  consoled  myself  with 
the  thought  that  they  so  admired  our  hogs 
that  they  associated  all  well-bred  Ameri- 
cans with  hogs. 

Hog-breeds  of  today  come  from  two  or 
three  potent  ancestors.  Each  breed  has 
but  a  few  potent  representative  sires  and 
they  sell  for  a  big  price,  as  a  ^*Duroc  Jer- 
sey'^  boar  sold  for  $5,000  and  his  stud  serv- 
ice fee  is  $50.00,  where  others  stand  at  50 
cents. 

The  Stud  Books  of  the  Kennel  Club  tell 
the  same  storv.  The  blue  ribbons  of  the 
bench,  the  winners  in  the  fields,  are  dogs 
which  all  run  back  through  two  or  three 
strains  in  the  Stud  Book.  It  is  not  this  or 
that  breed,  but  the  breed  as  a  whole,  and 
each  breed  has  a  limited  number  of  indi- 
viduals which  makes  the  Kennel  Stud  Book 
worth-while. 

Even  the  poultry  breeders  have  learned 
the  value  of  the  rare  sire,  as  some  cocks 


88  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

sell  for  $1,500 ;  and  a  setting  of  his  fertile 
eggs  sells  for  $100.  The  male  bird,  which 
improves  most  the  egg  production  of  his 
daughters,  becomes  the  bird  that  is  needed 
in  the  flock  and  his  ^^cockship"  really  be- 
comes the  ^'hen  that  lays  the  golden  egg.^^ 
Few  people  realize  that  our  egg  crop  is 
worth  50%  more  than  our  wheat  crop. 
Two  score  years  ago,  poultry  men  were 
content  to  secure  from  60  to  90  eggs  per 
year  from  each  hen.  By  taking  advantage 
of  the  reproductive  powers  of  a  few  males 
of  each  breed  and  breeding  only  to  these, 
the  egg  production  has  been  increased  to 
150  or  200  per  hen  for  the  average  flock, 
while  the  hen  already  has  been  evolved 
which  has  layed  315  eggs  in  one  year. 
Pullets  now  lay  at  six  months  and  hatch 
at  eight  months,  while  they  used  to  lay  at 
a  year  or  a  year  and  over.  There  is  no 
doubt  that  such  remarkable  results  are  due 
to  the  breeding  power  of  a  few  males.  This 
is  proved  by  the  following : 

A  cock  from  a  250  egg  strain  is  bred  to 
the  hens  of  a  100  egg  strain.  The  pullets 
of  this  cross  will  produce,  say,  200  eggs; 


IMPORTANCE    OF    EXCEPTIONAL    SIRE     39 

but,  if  you  breed  a  cock  from  a  100  egg 
cross  to  hens  of  a  250  egg  cross,  the  pul- 
lets of  this  cross  will  only  produce  100 
eggs.  This  explains  why,  when  you  have 
100  young  hens  and  your  next  door  neigh- 
bor has  the  same  number  and  same  variety, 
you  get  100  eggs,  whilst  he  gets  200  eggs — 
both  chickens  having  the  same  range  and 
the  same  food.  The  heavy  table  fowl  have 
their  exceptional  cock  from  which  all  the 
best  market  poultry  come. 

I  do  not  want  to  be  misunderstood  when 
I  emphasize  the  importance  of  the  excep- 
tional sire.  While,  at  most,  only  a  few 
sons  of  any  sire  can  improve  the  breed,  at 
the  same  time,  his  other  sons  and  daugh- 
ters are  far  more  valuable  than  the  produce 
of  inferior  sires.  In  other  words,  the  least 
desirable  of  the  get  of  a  great  sire  usually 
is  worth  more  than  the  most  valuable  of 
an  inferior  sire ;  and,  among  horses,  a  great 
sire  marks  his  colts  and  gives  them  his 
disposition,  his  intelligence,  his  speed  and 
individuality.  Among  market  poultry,  a 
great  cock  also  does  the  same;  he  gives 
them  weight  and  early  maturity. 


40  THE   RIGHT  TO   BE   WELL-BORN 

If  the  domestic  animals  furnish  absolute 
proof  of  my  statement,  that  only  a  few 
sires  of  a  breed  can  improve  it,  the  applica- 
tion to  eugenics  is  apparent;  that  only  a 
few  men  come  under  Combination  I. 

I  have  explained  in  the  five  combinations 
why  ^^  Peter  the  Great  ^^  is  the  great  sire 
he  is;  why  it  is  that  one  stallion  has 
more  vitality,  more  stamina  than  another, 
even  if  it  be  his  own  brother ;  and  why  one 
stallion  produces  a  better  colt  than  his  own 
brother,  even  when  both  have  been  bred 
to  the  same  mare.  We  know  why  a  mare 
produces  a  male  colt  at  one  time  and  a 
female  colt  at  another.  We  do  not  yet  know 
how  to  regulate  sex,  but  we  undoubtedly 
will  know  before  long.  When  a  scientist 
is  imbued  with  a  truth,  he  is  sure  to  dis- 
cover its  cause.  What  is  true  of  the  horse 
family  is  just  as  true  of  the  human  family. 
We  see  this  today  when  our  N.  Y.  City 
Health  Department  is  unable  to  secure 
pure  human  blood  for  their  serums  for  the 
cure  of  Infantile  Paralysis.  They  use  the 
blood  of  young  horses.     Some  strains  of 


LONGEVITY  IS  HEREDITARY  41 

horses,  just  as  some  Imman  families,  carry 
their  potency  and  vigor  to  greater  ages 
than  others.  It  is  a  hereditary  trait.  Fer- 
dinand de  Lesseps,  as  a  man,  is  an  example, 
and  ^'Charles  Derby,'*  in  horses,  is  an- 
other. 

The  hetterment  of  the  race  will  come 
through  a  few  families,  and,  of  those  fam- 
ilies, not  all  will  contribute  an  equal  share 
to  human  improvement, 

STERILITY. 

We  all  know  that  the  instant  a  hen  is 
hatched,  the  number  of  possible  eggs  she 
can  produce  is  known  and  limited.  It  is 
the  same  with  every  human  female, — and, 
as  the  greatest  glory  of  womanhood  is 
motherhood,  it  should  be  the  duty  and  the 
pleasure  of  every  woman  to  practice 
self-denial;  to  train  herself  and  mate  her- 
self so  that  her  offspring  will  be  the  best ; 
and  then  to  raise  her  children  so  that  they 
may  be  an  honor  and  glory  to  their  name 
and  a  credit  to  the  state.  In  some  coun- 
tries, chiefly  poh^gamous,  the  offspring 
used  to  take  the  name  of  the  mother  until 


42  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

science  proved  it  was  the  sire  that  stamped 
the  child's  mental  and  physical  powers 
and  gave  it  vigor  and  stamina. 

Dr.  Eobert  T.  Morris,  of  New  York  City, 
has  given  more  important  and  successful 
study  to  the  cause  of  sterility  in  the  human 
female  than  any  other  living  physician. 
His  book,  ^'Tomorrow's  Topics,"  is  most 
interesting  and  has  shown  that  most  cases 
of  sterility  are  caused  by  the  presence  of 
bacteria,  which  devour  the  fertilizing 
germs,  and  by  their  indirect  action  on  the 
structures  of  the  developing  organs  pre- 
vent conception.  With  the  simplest  meth- 
ods, he  has  most  successfully  treated  these 
'* so-called"  pronounced  cases  of  barren- 
ness— and  brought  joy  and  happiness  into 
desolate  homes,  where  motherhood  had 
been  longed  for,  but  despaired  of.  Wlien, 
for  reason  of  malformations  or  other 
causes,  there  are  physical  obstructions,  he 
uses  certain  methods  of  impregnation  with 
marvelous  success.  Dr.  Morris  concludes, 
from  his  study  and  experiments  with  the 
nature  of  living  protoplasm,  that  each  race 
has  so  much  protoplasmic  energy.     Each 


MORE  HIGHLY  BRED,  LESS   PROLIFIC      43 

family  has  only  a  given  amount  of  energy 
when  it  splits  off  from  the  original  stock. 
The  more  highly  bred  it  becomes,  the  less 
energy  it  retains  for  reproductive  purposes. 
The  high-bred  race  mares  have  lost  a  great 
degree  of  fertility.  Not  more  than  50% 
of  them  produce  any  one  year.  Professor 
W.  S.  Anderson,  of  the  Kentucky  Univer- 
sity, at  Lexington,  Ky.,  endorses  this  and 
understands  how  to  remedy  it  in  horses 
and  in  human  beings.  Such  well-bred 
hens  as  the  ever-laying  strains  of  Leg- 
horns will  not  incubate  their  own  eggs. 
The  Indian-Eunner  Duck,  which  has  laid 
as  many  as  320  eggs  in  a  year,  is  not  in- 
clined to  spend  her  time  hatching  and 
rearing  the  young  birds.  Fertility  is 
lessened  in  the  plant,  the  moment  you 
breed  its  petals  double.  The  number  of 
roses  decline,  as  you  add  petals  to  the 
flower. 

The  more  highly-bred  an  animal  or 
human  becomes,  the  more  barrenness  there 
is.  The  ^^ Dutchess''  strain  of  *^ Short- 
Horned''  cattle  sold  in  New  York  for  more 
money  than  ever  was  paid  before  or  since 


44  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

for  cattle.  Females  of  the  Dutchess  strain 
sold  from  $10,000  up  to  $40,000.  This  very 
cow  that  sold  for  $40,000  never  had  a  calf. 
Today  the  family  is  extinct.  The  champion 
high  bred  $10,000  White  Leghorn  hen, 
^^Lady  Eglantine,"  had  a  record  of  315 
eggs  a  year.  Though  the  eggs  were  all  set, 
they  only  produced  to  her  matings  12  chicks 
that  lived  to  maturity — 9  cocks  and  3  hens. 
The  champion  Plymouth  Rock,  ^^Lady 
Cornell,"  who  had  a  record  of  285  eggs, 
never,  so  far  as  I  know,  raised  a  chicken 
that  lived  to  maturity,  although  she  was 
repeatedly  well  mated.  The  late  Robert 
Bonner's  champion,  '^Maud  S.",  was 
splendidly  bred,  and  mated  to  about  all  of 
his  stallions,  but  never  had  a  colt. 

To  illustrate  the  value  of  the  well-bred 
sire  and  to  show  how  much  more  prolific 
the  common  bred  female  is  over  the  high- 
bred, I  visited  today  a  large  hog-farm,  from 
which  the  best  of  Kentucky  hams  come. 
Here  I  found,  running  wild,  several  hun- 
dred splendid,  young,  iine  looking  fat  pigs 
^s  you  want  to  see,  a  small  number  of  high- 
bred boars  and  several  hundred  of  the  com- 


CROSSING   HIGH   AND   LOW   BREEDING     45 

monest  razor-back  sows  I  ever  saw.  I 
asked  the  owner  whv  he  did  not  use  better 
bred  sows  and  his  reply  was  that  high-bred 
sows  were  only  half  as  prolific  as  common 
sows  and  were  not  so  hardy ;  that  the  high- 
bred boar  improved  the  flavor  of  the  meat 
and  insured  the  proper  bone  and  frame  to 
the  pig  on  which  to  put  the  right  kind  of 
meat ;  that  he  averaged  from  eight  to  four- 
teen pigs  per  litter  and  at  least  three  litters 
a  year ;  that  if  he  used  high-bred  sows  there 
would  not  be  60%  of  this  increase.  On  most 
of  the  sheep  farms,  where  they  raise  lambs 
for  the  market,  I  found  they  used  the  cheap 
Kentucky  Mountain  ewes  with  the  high- 
grade  rams — for  the  same  reasons. 

Some  years  ago,  I  secured  a  flock  of 
very  young  inbred  prize  game  bantams, 
weighing  from  one-half  to  three-quarters 
of  a  pound  each.  They  had  been  bred  for 
size  and  feathers.  They  laid  at  six  months 
and  had  chicks  at  eight  months.  For  sev- 
eral seasons,  nearly  all  the  young  chicks 
died.  Thinking  there  was  some  local 
trouble,  I  divided  the  flock  in  two  and  put 
one  flock  on  another  farm,  with  the  same 


46  THE  BIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

result.  One  of  the  cocks  dying,  I  secured 
another  of  different  strain.  This  flock  be- 
gan at  once  to  increase.  In  like  manner, 
in  this  country,  a  lot  of  the  oldest  and 
best  families  have  run  out,  become  deca- 
dent, or  else  have  entirely  disappeared 
from  lack  of  intelligent  mating  and  breed- 
ing of  their  members. 

Some  years  ago,  I  was  invited  to  witness 
the  re-interment  of  the  bodies,  on  the  male 
line,  of  a  distinguished  family  that  had 
been  buried  in  a  New  England  cemetery, 
back  in  1637.  They  were  all  in  the  same 
soil  and  all  were  buried  about  the  same 
depth.  The  bones  of  the  oldest  were  as 
hard  as  flint,  and  those  most  lately  buried, 
the  softest.  The  older  bones  were  solid 
and  heavy  and  indicated  that  their  owners 
were  tall  and  possessed  large  frames; 
while  those  of  our  times  were  smaller  and 
lighter  and  indica^ted  that  [their  owners 
were  shorter  and  stouter. 

If  this  does  not  tell  the  story  of  present 
degeneracy  in  the  human  frame  of  our 
American  citizens,  I  do  not  know  what 
does. 


MATING  A  LADY  TO  A  GROOM  47 

Let  me  give  a  curious  illustration:     I 
once  knew  intimately  a  great,  grand,  proud 
old  family,  whose  name  is  now  absolutely 
extinct,  sprung  from  one  illustrious  ances- 
tor.   They  had  a  daughter  who,  at  the  age 
of  35  or  40,  ran  away  with  a  young,  unedu- 
cated, but  bright  Irish  groom,  whose  an- 
cestral breeding  was  lost,  and  who  died 
about  the  time  of  the  birth  of  her  second 
son.    She  was  forgotten  by  her  family  and 
forgotten  by  the  world.    Of  her  two  sons, 
one  was  no  account,  the  other  exceptionally 
bright ;  at  one  moment  he  showed  his  high 
breeding  and,  at  the  next,  all  the  charac- 
teristics   of    a    tricky,    suspicious    fellow. 
How  I  have  enjoyed  watching  him.    Now 
the  peacock!     Now  the  duck!     Then  to 
watch  the  countenances  of  high-bred  people 
in  their  intercourse  with  him,  for  he   is 
exceedingly  clever ;  now  they  lean  forward 
to  catch  his  witty,  choicely  put  together 
sentences;  suddenly,  they  draw  back,  they 
have  caught  a  whiff  of  the  stable.     If  I 
only    dared    to    tell    that   fellow   how    to 
marry!     He  might  bring  back  from  the 
grave  the  soul  of  that  ancestor. 


48  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

Nature  imposed  on  the  pioneers  of  New 
England  such  a  selective  eliminating  proc- 
ess as  never  before  or  since  has  been 
imposed  upon  any  people.  The  rigors  of 
the  climate  and  unproductiveness  of  the  soil 
killed  off  the  weak  and  diseased  of  the  Ply- 
mouth Rock  Colony.  From  the  rugged  ones 
left,  there  sprang  up  the  New  England 
families,  who  have  since  played  such  com- 
manding parts  in  American  history.  But 
this  virile  strain  is  disappearing.  No  con- 
scious eifort  has  been  or  is  being  made  to 
conserve  the  good.  Soon,  it  will  have  sunk 
to  the  level  of  the  mediocre. 

Our  pure  healthy  New  England  blood 
can  no  longer  cross  with  or  assimilate  the 
rotten,  foreign,  diseased  blood  of  ages, 
which  the  gates  of  our  immigration  laws 
now  swing  wide  open  and  allow  to  flow  in 
upon  us.  For  the  sake  of  our  ^^  American 
baby,''  and  the  future  of  our  American 
people,  will  not  our  Eepresentatives  in 
Congress  pass  more  stringent  immigration 
laws  to  stop  this  inflow  of  diseased  blood  f 
It  is  time  we  Am.ericans  who  have  patriot- 
ism in  our  hearts,  and  gratitude  to  our  an- 


MEN  DO  NOTHING  TO  IMPROVE  RACE  49 

cestors  for  the  privations  and  sufferings 
they  underwent  to  give  us  this  beautiful 
land,  assert  ourselves  and  announce  to  the 
world  that  America  must  be  for  Amer- 
icans, and  not  for  the  imported  scum  of  the 
earth. 

If  the  truth  were  known,  there  are  not, 
today,  in  the  United  States,  4,000  men  of 
the  right  ancestral  history,  conformation, 
constitution  and  of  mental  and  physical 
force,  born  under  or  even  near  to  Combi- 
nation I.,  who  could,  by  themselves,  im- 
prove the  breeding  of  our  human  family. 

If  this  improvement  is  to  become  per- 
manent, these  4,000  must  be  mated  and 
bred  to  the  highest  bred  females,  of  the 
right  conformation,  constitution,  and  of 
mental  and  physical  force,  and  whose  an- 
cestry and  blood  must  be  free  from  phys- 
ical and  mental  defects,  and  they  them- 
selves born  under  or  near  Combination  II. 

The  obvious  conclusion  from  the  preced- 
ing statements  is  that  the  average  man  is 
doing  nothing  and  can  do  nothing  to  im- 
prove his  race.    He  adds  to  the  numbers 


50  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

only.  They  are,  so  far  as  eugenics  are 
concerned,  simply  drones  in  the  human  bee- 
hive. 

EDUCATION  AND  HEEEDITY. 

Another  important  observation  can  be 
made  by  the  horse  breeder.  Training,  edu- 
cation and  feeding  can  add  nothing  to  a 
horse  which  he  can  pass  on  to  his  offspring. 
The  school,  the  college  and  the  university 
do  not  give  anything  to  the  boy  which  he 
can  hand  on  to  his  own  sons.  We  train  and 
race  horses  to  find  out  if  they  are  fit  to 
breed,  and  I,  in  addition,  examine  their  life 
germs  under  the  microscope  to  find  out 
whether  they  are  worthy  or  unworthy  to 
stand  in  the  harem.  '^Many  come,  but  few 
are  chosen^'  to  my  Stallion  Court,  and  the 
horse  who  has  not  the  right  kind  and  num- 
ber of  life  germs  and  right  kind  of  ancestry 
and  with  it  the  vitality,  bone,  muscle,  ten- 
don, stamina,  lung  power  and  intelligence 
to  be  trained  and  raced,  lacks  something 
which  we  need  in  the  race  horse.  We  refuse 
to  breed  him.  Often  do  we  hear  an  old 
breeder  say,  **I  shall  not  breed  my  good 


EDUCATION   WITHOUT   HEREDITY  51 

mare  to  such  and  such  a  stallion,  because 
he  is  not  game ;  he  is  a  quitter ;  he  is  soft 
and  he  comes  from  a  family  of  quitters.'' 

A  well-known  trainer,  who  made  fame 
and  money  three  years  ago,  has  just  pur- 
chased two  colts.  His  remark  is:  ^^I  have 
been  a  loser  for  two  years,  because  I  tried 
to  race  fast  horses  that  came  from  sires 
whose  ancestors  were  not  game.  Whenever 
I  got  in  a  tight  spot,  they  quit."  The  Bible 
tells  us  the  sins  of  the  fathers  are  visited 
upon  the  children  unto  the  third  and  fourth 
generation.    Horse  breeding  proves  this. 

The  breeders  of  ** Fighting  Cocks''  are 
about  as  careful  of  pedigrees  and  hered- 
itary taints  as  any  you  ever  met.  They 
know  one  drop  of  cur  blood  in  their  breed- 
ing cock  means  their  ruin. 

^^Patchen  Wilkes,"  a  son  of  ^* George 
Wilkes,"  was  considered,  in  his  time,  about 
the  best  bi^d  and  handsomest  horse  in 
America,  but,  as  a  great  sire  of  early  speed, 
was  an  absolute  failure.  His  female  off- 
spring, however,  became  good  broodmares. 

Afterwards,  when  *  *  Onward, ' '  the  great- 
est son  of  ** George  Wilkes,"  was  bred  to 


52  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

young  mares  that  had  had  their  first  colts 
by  **Patchen  Wilkes/'  I  noticed  that  the 
heads  and  tails  of  these  first  colts  were 
like  **Patchen  Wilkes,"  and  that  they  often 
were  marked  like  ^^Patchen  Wilkes '^  on 
the  fetlocks.  I  noticed  this  same  phenom- 
enon in  colts  by  ^^ Peter  the  Great/'  out 
of  young  mares  that  had  their  first  colts 
by  ** Onward,"  that  they  had  an  inclina- 
tion toward  *^ Onward"  heads  and  tails. 

I  observed  mule  colts  that  looked  very 
much  like  horses.  On  investigation,  I  dis- 
covered that  the  dams  of  these  mule  colts 
had  first  colts  by  a  stallion.  I  noticed  this 
particularly  in  the  heads,  neck  and  tails  of 
these  animals. 

There  is  just  one  conclusion  I  can  draw, 
and  that  is,  a  young  mare  carries  certain 
elements  of  life  that  she  gets  from  the  first 
mating  over  to  the  second  mating  by  an- 
other stallion. 

What  is  true  of  the  mare  is  true  of 
humans.  If  a  widow,  who  has  had  a  child 
by  her  first  husband,  should  have  a  child 
by  her  second  husband,  the  child  by  the 


PECULIARITIES  TRANSMITTED  53 

second  husband,  to  a  certain  extent,  would 
get  the  leavings  of  the  first  husband. 

Certain  great  stallions  of  the  thorough- 
bred and  trotting  horse  families  have  pe- 
culiarities and  habits  which  they  as  surely 
transmit  to  their  descendants  as  the  black 
man  transmits  his  black  skin  or  the  white 
man  transmits  his  white  skin. 

These  traits  are  not  as  apparent  among 
the  stallions  of  today  as  they  were  thirty 
years  ago,  as  intelligent  breeders  have,  by 
judicious  crossing,  outbred  these  tempera- 
mental defects,  as  well  as  the  physical  de- 
fects. But,  in  the  human,  these  traits  of 
character,  and  hereditary  physical  traits 
and  peculiarities  of  families,  are  almost  as 
apparent  today  as  they  were  one  hundred 
years  ago.  There  has  been  no  scientific 
breeding  to  eliminate  them.  Often  we  find 
that  a  son  or  daughter  of  exceptionally 
fine  parents  is  a  brainless  good-for- 
nothing.  In  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  if  you 
will  trace  back  his  or  her  ancestry,  you 
will  find  it  is  a  case  of  heredity. 

In  the  horse,  some  families  are  inclined 
to  kick  with  the  hind  feet  and  others  to  hit 


54  THE  laGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

with  their  front  feet.  Some  bite,  and  some 
watch  their  opportunity  and  grab  their  vic- 
tims with  their  teeth,  kneel  on  them  and  kill 
them. 

•  I  went  into  a  sales  stable  yesterday 
and  the  owner  called  my  attention  to  a  very 
valuable  mare.  ^^Look  out  for  her/'  he 
called,  as  I  entered  her  stall,  *  ^  she  belongs 
to  such  and  such  a  family. ' ' 

Now,  men  who  amount  to  anything  have 
peculiar  family  traits,  just  as  they  have  dis- 
tinctive physical  features,  as  the  shape  of 
the  nose,  the  ear,  the  mouth,  the  teeth, 
the  chest,  etc.,  etc.  These  they  transmit  to 
their  offspring  just  as  surely  as  do  the  stal- 
lions to  their  colts.  Others  have  family  in- 
clinations to  consumption,  to  cancer,  to  con- 
stipation, to  asthma  and  mental  troubles, 
which  can  be  outbred  by  judicious  mar- 
riage. 

All  have  heard  of  the  Indian  baby  that 
was  reared  and  educated  from  birth  in  a 
family  of  culture  and  refinement;  and, 
when  the  first  opportunity  came,  heredity 
prevailed  and  he  took  to  the  woods — and  of 


TWELVE-YEAR-OLD  EQUALS  BOY  TWENTY  55 

the  Eskimo  baby,  reared  in  tbe  same  way, 
\Yho  longed  for  ice  and  cold  weather. 

The  boy  who  has  not  the  natural  powers 
to  secure  an  education,  when  he  reaches 
manhood,  cannot  give  to  his  children  that 
which  he,  himself,  does  not  possess.  It 
matters  not  how  you  may  work  upon  the 
fellow  to  cover  up  his  lack  of  talent  by  long 
training,  he  only  can  transmit  that  which 
he  inherited  from  his  ancestors.  Nothing 
of  his  culture  and  training  can  be  handed 
on. 

When  you  see  a  man  of  great  activity 
of  mind,  body  and  energy,  and  with  an  iron 
constitution,  carrying  his  life  giving  powers 
well  on  in  years,  you  may  be  sure  of  one 
thing, — ^his  parents  were  wise  in  the  selec- 
tion of  their  ancestors. 

There  is  no  reason  why,  by  judicious 
crossing  and  breeding,  you  cannot  produce 
a  boy  of  twelve  who  will  have  the  same 
mental  and  physical  development  of  a 
young  man  of  twenty  of  today.  We  have 
done  this  in  the  horse,  and  we  can  do  it  in 
the  human,  but  it  will  take  from  fifteen  to 
twenty  times  the  amount  of  time.     As  a 


56  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

proof  of  this,  I  wrote  an  article,  some  ten 
years  ago,  predicting  that  a  colt  would  soon 
be  produced,  which  at  the  age  of  two  would 
have  the  intelligence,  physical  development 
and  stamina  of  a  horse  of  six  or  seven ;  and 
I  had  the  good  fortune  to  produce  that  colt 
in  ^*  Peter  Volo,'*  who  took  a  record  of 
2:041/2  at  two  years  of  age  and  2:03%  at 
three  years,  and  2:02  at  four.  From 
his  breeding  and  from  our  microscopic 
examination  of  his  germs,  he  can  not  but 
be  a  great  sire  of  early  and  extreme  speed. 

DEFECTIVES,     LIKE     UNFIT     ANI- 
MALS, SHOULD  BE  STERILIZED. 

In  breeding  horses,  we  render  impotent 
the  unfit.  We  never  try  to  render  fit  a  sire 
by  education.  We  have  no  sanitariums  for 
weak  horses,  to  keep  them  alive  at  public 
expense,  and  then  turn  them  loose  to  repro- 
duce their  unfitness,  to  refill  more  homes 
for  defectives.  The  same  rule  should  apply 
to  humans.  Go  to  Randalls'  Island  with  me, 
and  see  there  2,000  defectives — some  with 
heads  not  bigger  than  your  fist,  two  or 
three  from  the  same  family  and  others  with 


DEFECTIVES   SHOULD  BE   STERILIZED         57 

less  intelligence  than  animals,  so  low  in  in- 
telligence that  they  cannot  care  for  their 
own  simplest  wants,  all  supported  by  New 
York  City  tax-payers,  and  you  will  say 
that  it  were  better  for  these  children  and 
better  for  the  world  had  they  never  been 
born. 

Ninety-nine  per  cent,  of  them  are  chil- 
dren of  the  diseased  off  scouring  of  Europe 
and  the  Orient.  Take  one  good  look  at  this 
bunch  of  2,000  defectives  and  ask  yourself 
the  question :  Is  it  just  and  fair  to  the  un- 
born to  allow  them  to  grow  up,  mate  and 
breed  more  defectives?  Is  it  not  the  duty 
of  the  state  to,  at  least,  sterilize  the  males? 
On  examination,  I  found  that  not  one  of 
the  parents  of  these  defective  children 
ever  paid  one  cent  of  city  taxes;  that 
they  or  their  parents  had  been  simply 
dumped  on  our  shores;  also  that,  at  least, 
some  of  their  parents  had  been  a  further 
burden  on  our  city  by  having  been  inmates 
of  our  city  hospitals  and  our  charity  insti- 
tutions. Is  this  sort  of  business  fair  to 
those  who  pay  taxes  ?  The  community  pays 
well  our  law  makers  to  make  laws  to  protect 


58  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

ITS.    Instead  of  this  they  neglect  their  duty, 
to  put  it  mildly. 

The  army  of  field  workers  sent  out  by  the 
Eugenics  Record  Office  has  traced  and  tab- 
ulated pedigrees  of  enough  human  defec- 
tives to  prove  that  defectives  come  from 
defective  parents.  Insane  parents  produce 
children  who  are  subject  to  the  same  afflic- 
tion. "Weak-minded  men  and  women  beget 
children  of  the  same  kind.  Erratic  ner- 
vous temperaments  also  are  transmitted. 
Sex  offenders  and  criminals,  in  large  meas- 
ure, transmit  the  lack  of  self-control,  which 
results  in  anti-social  acts.  The  remarkable 
results  obtained  by  the  Eugenics  Record 
Office  have  convinced  the  scientist  of  the 
correctness  of  the  foregoing  statements. 
Their  field  workers  have  quietly  traced 
from  court,  asylum,  cemetery,  etc.,  records 
and  other  sources,  the  cause  of  the  death 
and  the  weak  points  of  10,000  families  for 
100  years  back.  Undertakers,  doctors, 
cemetery  books,  etc.,  are  secured,  and  these 
records  tell  a  story  of  goodness  or  rotten- 
ness; of  what  diseases  or  family  failings 
are  to  be  out-crossed  by  proper  mating. 


^•JUKES"    PRODUCED    DEMORALIZATION      59 

Dugdale,  in  1877,  through  Putnam's 
Sons,  published  a  study  of  crime,  pauper- 
ism, disease  and  heredity,  and  brought  to 
light  the  history  of  the  **  Jukes,"  who  in 
about  1780,  originated  from  one,  **  Jukes,'' 
a  hard  drinker,  who  lived  in  the  upper  part 
of  the  State  of  New  York,  and  who,  in  that 
short  period,  had  1200  descendants.  Today, 
after  a  lapse  of  130  years,  old  Jukes' 
descendants  number  2820  of  which  ^Ye  of 
his  daughters,  all  own  sisters^  have  descend- 
ants that  number  2094,  all  of  whom  carry 
Jukes'  blood,  and  of  these  1258  are  a/ive 
today.  Of  these,  down  to  1871,  300  received 
pauper  support,  equal  to  2300  years  of 
pauper  support  to  one  person.  171  were 
criminal  offenders ;  250  were  arrested  and 
tried  for  various  crimes ;  60  were  known  as 
habitual  thieves ;  and  7  were  tried  and  con- 
victed of  murder;  50  were  prostitutes;  40 
of  the  women  were  known  to  have  syphilis ; 
and  it  was  estimated  that  these  40  syphil- 
ized  440  men,  40  of  whom  syphilized  their 
wives,  and  their  progeny  became  tainted 
and  diseased  up  to  an  unknown  number. 
Only  20  were  known  to  have  followed  any 


60  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

useful  trades,  10  of  whom  learned  these 
trades  in  state's  prison.  The  prison  terms 
of  these  people  down  to  1915  were  375% 
years  for  one  person,  and  the  aggregate 
cost  of  this  family  to  the  State  was  $2,100,- 
000  and  for  pensions  $650,000  more.  These 
statements  of  Dugdale  were  thoroughly  in- 
vestigated and,  in  1877,  startled  thinking 
people,  but,  today,  all  is  forgotten.  Dugdale 
finished  his  work  by  adding,  ^*It  is  getting 
time  to  ask,  why  do  not  our  courts,  our 
laws,  our  almshouses  and  our  jails  deal 
with  the  question  presented?'' 

Then  Dr.  Esterbrook  of  Indianapolis, 
Ind.,  published  the  history  of  *^The  Nam" 
family,  852  persons,  all  from  one  ancestor, 
another  defective  family  that  cost  the 
State  and  society  $1,141,676.  This  family 
is  still  reproducing  feeble-minded  people, 
defectives  and  criminals.  Dr.  Esterbrook 
is  now  at  work  on  the  ^^Ishmaels,"  a  family 
of  over  9,000  members.  They  came  from 
one  parent  stock.  They  left  Kentucky  some 
time  after  1800  for  Indiana,  and,  in  1840. 
this  family  was  said  to  number  300. 
They  have  intermarried  and  intermarried 


THE   FAMILY   OF  RICHARD   EDWARDS      61 

and  it  is  estimated  they  have  cost  society 
and  the  State  $2,000,000  or  more,  and  are 
stil]  producing  feeble-minded  or  defective 
offspring.  (See  Dr.  Esterbrook's  report.) 
They  cost  Indiana,  alone,  over  $1,000,000. 

Let  me  contrast  with  you  the  family  of 
Richard  Edwards,  a  Connecticut  lawyer, 
descended  from  a  Puritan  family,  who,  in 
1667,  married  for  his  first  wife,  Elizabeth 
Tuttle,  born  of  a  family  of  physical  and 
mental  superiority  and  with  a  good  healthy 
ancestry,  evidently  born  with  the  high-bred 
female  organism  of  Combination  II. 
Among  their  descendants  were  300  college 
graduates,  14  college  presidents,  100  college 
professors,  30  judges,  60  physicians,  100 
clergymen,  missionaries  and  theological 
professors;  65  authors  of  135  books;  ed- 
itors, lawyers,  politicians  and  leaders  of  in- 
dustry and  owners  of  factories. 

Afterwards,  Richard  Edwards  married 
Mary  Talcott,  of  a  family  of  very  mediocre 
ability.  She  had  a  pretty  face  and  nice 
figure,  but  little  talent  and  no  decision  of 
character;   she  aged  quickly  and  became 


62  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

very  ordinary  in  appearance  as  she  grew 
older. 

This  union  produced  five  sons  and  one 
daughter.  Not  one  of  these  children  or 
their  descendants  ever  gained  the  slightest 
reputation  for  ability  or  usefulness.  They 
were,  what  would  be  termed  in  horse  par- 
lance, *' dummies. " 

If  these  contrasts  do  not  show  the  young 
people  of  this  country  that  it  is  time  to  con- 
sider the  hereditary  traits  of  contracting 
parties,  before  marriage,  I  do  not  know 
what  will. 

I  feel  sure  that  every  word  which  I  have 
said  about  the  horse,  the  cow,  the  hog  and 
the  hen,  will  be  endorsed  by  men  who  have 
made  a  study  of  the  methods  by  which  the 
breeds  of  domestic  animals  have  been 
brought  to  their  present  state  of  excellence ; 
and,  likewise  by  experts  in  eugenics,  what  I 
have  said  about  heredity  in  the  human  race. 

Some  of  my  readers  may  question  my 
repeated  statement,  that  what  is  true  of  the 
horse  is  true  of  the  human.  I  could  add 
other  authorities,  in  addition  to  Professor 
Johannsen,  of  Jena,  by  quoting  from  the 


HEREDITARY    DEAFNESS  63 

writings  of  Drs.  Davenport  and  Eeed, 
Prof.  Popenoe,  Editor  of  the  organ  of  the 
American  Genetic  Association,  *  ^  The  Jour- 
nal of  Heredity/*  and  other  great  scien- 
tists, but  to  do  so  would  be  more  like 
plating  gold  with  gold  to  anyone  at  all  ex- 
perienced in  such  matters. 

There  are  in  the  United  States,  at  least 
100,000,000  people.  Of  this  number,  3%  are 
sufficiently  deaf  to  need  help;  there  are 
adults  to  the  number  of  5,000,000  that  are 
**hard  of  hearing''  and  there  are  1,000,000 
known  deaf.  60%  of  these  can  trace  thei?: 
lack  of  hearing  to  deaf  parents  or  deaf  an- 
cestors. 

Dr.  C.  A.  Fay  has  made  a  study  of  the 
records  gathered  by  the  Tolta  Bureau.  He 
finds  that  there  have  been  4,471  marriages 
between  deaf  persons.  14.1%  of  these  deaf 
matings  report  no  children.  There  are 
6,782  children  reported  from  parents,  both 
of  whom  are  totally  deaf,  24.7%  of  children 
from  these  deaf  parents  are  themselves 
deaf.  Are  not  such  marriages  criminal 
and  should  not  the  State  interfere? 

Thus  Dr.  Pay's   tabulation   shows   that 


64  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

deafness  is  hereditary.  Among  normal 
people,  a  child  born  deaf  is  very  rare,  un- 
less there  is  deafness  in  one  or  both  families 
of  the  parents.  Dr.  Fay  also  finds  that  per- 
sons deaf  by  accident  do  not  produce  deaf 
children.  Only  the  parents  who  are  syphi- 
litic or  have  the  tendency  to  deafness  in 
their  ancestry  can  transmit  deafness.  80% 
of  the  inherited  deaf  mutes  either  lack  cer- 
tain nerves  in  their  inner  ear  or  these 
nerves  do  not  respond. 

The  '^Volta  Eeview''  gives,  among  the 
important  causes  of  deafness,  heredity,  con- 
sanguineous marriages,  tuberculosis,  syph- 
ilis and  infectious  fevers. 

Alexander  Graham  Bell  wrote,  thirty 
years  ago,  *Hhat  if  marriages  between  the 
deaf  continued  for  several  generations, 
there  would  result  a  new  variety  of  the 
human,  permanently  devoid  of  the  sense  of 
hearing. 

**When  one' parent  is  normal  and  one 
is  hereditarily  deaf,  the  children  have  an 
even  chance  of  escaping  the  imperfection.'' 

Analogous  marriages  between  persons 
afflicted  with  hereditary  Bright 's  Disease 


INTERMARRIAGE  OF  DEAF  OR  BLIND       65 

or  hereditary  Heart  Disease,  etc.,  etc.,  have 
been  tried,  with  the  uniform  result  that  in 
a  few  years  all  the  descendants  were  so  af- 
flicted that  finally  the  family  died  out. 

Dr.  J.  Kerr  Love,  in  his  exhaustive 
treatise  on  ^^The  Causes  of  Children  Be- 
coming Deaf  in  Great  Britain,"  states  the 
causes : 

^ '  First — meningitis ;  second — hereditary 
syphilis." 

There  are  58,000  blind  persons  in  the 
United  States.  Of  these,  about  50%  are  the 
result  of  heredity  and  about  30%  from 
social  diseases;  about  20%  from  inbred 
marriages  and  other  causes. 

Will  anyone  question  that  it  is  the  duty 
of  the  United  States  Government  to  pass 
laws  that  will  prohibit  two  hereditarily 
blind  persons  marrying,  or  the  marriage  of 
two  hereditarily  deaf  persons,  or  of  one 
blind  person,  who  is  hereditarily  blind, 
marrying  into  a  family  whose  past  history 
shows  hereditary  blindness ;  or,  one  hered- 
itary deaf  mute  marrying  into  a  family 
whose  past  history  shows  hereditary  deaf- 
ness f    Science,  however,  is  now  gradually 


66  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

eliminating  the  number  of  the  blind.  The 
1913  census  shows  a  falling  off  of  11.1% 
per  100,000  from  the  census  of  1905. 

Such  afflicted  people  are,  by  nature  of 
their  affliction,  thrown  more  or  less  into 
each  other's  society  and  it  is  only  natural 
that  marriages  will  occur  among  them,  un- 
less the  state  steps  in  and  forbids  it.  If 
something  of  this  nature  is  not  done,  we  will 
increase  the  number  of  our  hereditarily 
blind  and  deaf.  There  is  no  question  but 
that  a  large  percentage  of  cancer  and  con- 
sumption cases  are  so  by  inheritance  and 
that  people  are  born  with  tendencies  to  can- 
cer and  consumption;  and  it  would  not  be 
wise  for  persons  afflicted  with  cancer  or  con- 
sumption to  marry  persons  who  had  con- 
sumption or  cancer,  or  had  it  in  their  family 
history.  Laws  should  be  passed  to  pre- 
vent such  unions.  The  same  is  true  of  peo- 
ple whose  family  history  on  both  sides 
shows  a  tendency  to  Heart  Disease  or 
Bright *s  Disease.  This  doubling  up  and 
doubling  up  of  tendencies  to  Bright 's  Dis- 
ease has  continued  until  today  it  is  not  an 
uncommon  thing  to  find  children  born  with 


HEART    DISEASE    HEREDITARY  67 

Bright 's  Disease,  from  which  they  die 
shortly  after  birth. 

Today,  in  our  New  York  City  Public 
Schools,  there  are  15,000  children  who  have 
hereditary  Heart  Disease,  and  thousands 
more  who  have  teeth  rotted  at  the  roots  and 
other  hereditary  affections. 

People  are  born  whose  families  show 
tendencies  to  asthma.  It  may  skip  a  genera- 
tion, but  it  always  appears  again,  unless 
eliminated  by  the  right  out-cross.  It  is  in- 
herent in  the  physical  make-up,  so  it  is  in- 
herent in  the  seed  of  the  sire ;  that  germ  of 
life  that  gave  you  your  origin.  How  mar- 
velous! How  inexpressibly  mysterious, 
and  sublime! 

** Saint  Vitus 's  dance''  is  hereditary  in 
most  cases  and  so  are  adenoids  in  chil- 
dren; others  have  tendencies  to  tumors, 
etc.,  etc.  I  have  in  my  employ,  today,  a 
woman  who  had  a  tumor  removed.  She 
had  two  sisters  who  had  tumors  removed, 
and  she  has  two  sisters  more  who  must 
have  tumors  removed.  Her  mother  died 
of  a  tumor  removed;  and  her  aunt  had 
tumors  removed.    As  far  back  as  she  knows. 


68  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

her  family  history  shows  her  family  had 
tendencies  to  tumorous  growths  on  the 
female  side. 

Anyone  who  works  with  Nature  must  ad- 
mit the  existence  of  a  Supreme  Being — or  a 
Supreme  ^^ something''  that  rules  the  uni- 
verse, foresees  the  future,  and  regulates 
our  destinies.  Let  us  call  that  '*  some- 
thing" God,  and  give  him  the  gratitude  and 
respect  due. 

Fifty  years  ago,  anyone  who  attempted 
the  surgical  operation  of  removing  the  ap- 
pendix would  have  heen  classed  among  lun- 
atics. Today,  that  operation  is  performed 
daily.  Beneficial  surgery  has  advanced  far 
ahead  of  the  science  of  medicine.  Any 
thinking  person  knows  it  would  be  criminal 
to  allow  hereditary  epileptics  to  marry 
hereditary  epileptics,  or  if  he  or  she  does 
not  think  so,  let  them  go  with  me  into  a 
colony  of  epileptics  and  see  for  themselves. 
The  scientific  expert  human-breeder  to- 
day knows  how  to  eliminate  this  and  other 
failings  from  the  human  family. 

In  a  certain  Western  section  of  our  coun- 
try, there  are  people  who  have  gone  there 


HEREDITARY    TUBERCULAR   TUMORS      69 

in  time  past  for  trouble  of  the  tliroat  and 
the  lungs.  Here  they  were  thrown  in  each 
other  ^s  society  and  the  result  is  that,  owing 
to  propinquity  in  that  section,  there  is  an 
unduly  large  percentage  of  people  there  to- 
day who  have  lung  and  throat  trouble. 

As  I  dictate  these  words,  a  trotting-bred 
filly  has  just  died.  Her  dam  has  had  four 
colts,  two  of  them  by  a  well-known  stallion. 
Both  of  these  colts  have  met  with  peculiar 
deaths.  The  other  two  were  by  another 
well  known  stallion  that  had  imported  thor- 
oughbred blood  from  an  illustrious  sire. 
The  life  germs  of  this  second  stallion,  un- 
der microscopic  examination,  are  small  and 
numerous,  but  well  formed,  and  exceed- 
ingly quick  and  vigorous  in  their  action. 
The  two  colts  from  this  mating  are  per- 
fectly well ;  so,  on  the  death  of  this  second 
colt  by  the  first  stallion,  an  autopsy  was 
held,  and  it  disclosed  by  microscopic  inves- 
tigation that  the  colt  had  tubercular  tu- 
mors. This  indicates  that  the  sire  of  the 
two  colts  that  died,  somewhere  in  his  past 
history,  had  an  ancestor  that  had  tumors, 
which    stallion  ^s    tendencies    to    tumors, 


70  THS  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

added  to  the  mare's  tendencies  to  tnmors, 
produced  a  colt  with  a  tumor.  This  illus- 
trates my  point,  and  also  shows — that,  by 
judicious  selection  in  mating,  ailments  and 
defects  can  be  bred  out,  and  thus  elimi- 
nated. 

The  general  public  does  not  know  of  the 
work  of  the  Eugenics  Record  Office  to  aid 
the  public  to  avoid  such  errors  in  mating 
and  is  ignorant  of  the  bearing  of  certain 
infallible  laws  of  nature  upon  the  problem 
of  heredity.  What  their  field  workers  do  not 
uncover  in  the  past  history  of  any  family 
under  investigation  is  not  discoverable.  I 
claim  that  today  this  great  nation  of  ours  is 
rushing  on  to  decay  and  degeneracy  with 
the  speed  of  a  Twentieth  Century  Limited, 
and  that  our  young  men  and  women  must 
open  their  eyes  and  take  m.eans  to  stop  it,  if 
they  have  an  atom  of  American  patriotism 
in  their  veins. 

THE  NUMBER  AND  COST  OF 
DEFECTIVES. 

If  the  following  statistical  summary  of 
Public  State  Institutions  for  the  Socially 


THE  COST  OF  DEFECTIVES  71 

Inadequate  in  the  several  states  of  the  con- 
tinental United  States  does  not  influence 
our  Congressmen  to  pass  the  needed  laws,  I 
do  not  know  what  will.  Let  me  quote  from 
a  Eeport  prepared  by  Carnegie  Institute  of 
Eesearch,  Cold  Spring  Harbor,  L.  I.,  dated 
August  1,  1916. 

*'This  summary  does  not  include  the  in- 
dependents that  are  taken  care  of  in  towns 
by  the  Town  Authorities  or  County  Poor- 
houses  or  Alms  Houses,  and,  therefore,  do 
not  become  a  charge  on  the  State.  It 
does  not  cover  the  vast  amount  of  inmates 
of  private  institutions,  so  that  the  expendi- 
tures for  the  socially  inadequate  would  be 
at  least  $100,000,000  per  year. 

*^  $73,000,000  paid  out  per  year  by  the 
states  composing  the  continental  United 
States. 

''$27,000,000,  at  least,  paid  out  per  year 
by  the  county  poorhouses,  almshouses,  town 
and  private  institutions — 

*' Total,  $100,000,000.'' 


72 


THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 


1.  Total    number    of    In- 
stitutions. 


2.  Inmates: 

A.  Total    No.     at    one 
time,   1913. 


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BREED  PATRIOTISM;  TEACH  HYGIENE     73 

The  time  has  now  come  when  thinking, 
patriotic  citizens  have  to  realize  the  neces- 
sity of  breeding  strong,  healthy,  brainy 
children  with  patriotism  in  their  hearts, 
who  will  protect  this  country  with  their 
mental  force,  or,  if  necessary,  by  force  of 
arms.  Let  us,  at  least  for  the  present,  cut 
out  of  our  public  schools  and  colleges, 
the  dead  languages,  such  as  Latin,  Greek, 
Sanscrit  and  Hebrew,  also  Music  and 
Dancing,  and,  in  their  place  teach,  first, 
American  Patriotism;  then  the  Laws  of 
Heredity  and  Hygiene,  for  these  are  live 
topics  which  affect  the  permanency  of  the 
family  and  the  State. 

Shall  we  Americans  have  a  land  of  our 
own ;  or  shall  we  surrender  it  to  the  rabble 
' — outcasts  of  other  nations,  whose  per- 
verted views  of  life  will  sooner  or  later  af- 
fect our  nation  and  warp  our  opinions  on 
national  and  other  questions? 

I  trust  there  are  enough  Americans  left 
to  defend  the  Flag,  for  which  our  ancestors 
fought  and  died,  and  to  see  that  laws  are 
passed  that  will  protect  the  unborn  and  give 


74  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

them  tlieir  rights  and  save  this  country  to 
the  worthy  of  the  American-born. 

We  can  not  forever  absorb  this  influx  of 
the  scum  of  the  earth,  this  offscouring,  dis- 
eased, imported  blood,  with  its  evil  customs. 
What  have  they  done  for  our  country  and 
this  city,  and  the  health  of  our  nation,  ex- 
cept to  make  trouble?  And  the  result  of 
their  matings  with  the  healthy  blood  of 
our  nation  is  a  batch  of  unhealthy  dis- 
eased children — weaklings  who  will  breed 
weaklings  and  trouble-makers. 

The  time  has  come  when  the  man  of  the 
business  world  and  every  mother  of  sons 
and  daughters  should  know  these  laws 
of  nature  and  their  meaning  to  the  fu- 
ture of  the  American  people.  The  cry  of 
the  world  today  is  for  facts — more  light. 
Let  prudery  be  banished  forever.  Tell  the 
young  people  the  truths  of  life.  Give  each 
a  chance  to  know  and  decide  for  him  or  her- 
self. They  should  know  what  these  laws 
of  nature  mean  to  our  country,  what  they 
mean  to  the  health  and  prosperity  of  our 
descendants,  to  themselves  and  to  their  own 
children.    Every  thinking  man  in  this  coun- 


CHILDREN    NOT    GIFTS    FROM    ANGELS     75 

try  will  awake  some  day  to  find  our  people 
degenerating,  our  children  growing  men- 
tally and  physically  weaker  and  the  lives  of 
our  people  growing  shorter,  and  even  with 
the  sciences  of  surgery  and  medicine  vastly 
improved,  their  children  suffering  untold 
hereditary  ills.  These  are  the  important 
questions  of  the  hour. 

Children  are  not  gifts  from  angels. 
Their  bodies  and  brains  are  not  products 
of  occult  forces.  Each  child  has  two  par- 
ents, who  give  it  all  it  has  of  a  body,  brain 
and  talent.  We  know  that,  if  we  are  to 
breed  a  trotter  with  extreme  speed,  we  must 
mate  a  sire  and  dam,  each  of  whom  repre- 
sents a  line  of  pure  speed  and  healthy 
ancestry.  We  know  there  are  many 
qualities,  all  of  which  must  be  united  in 
one  animal  to  make  a  great  race  horse,  as 
conformation,  health,  lungs,  speed,  endur- 
ance, toughness,  gait,  intelligence,  etc. 
Should  a  horse  lack  intelligence,  so  that 
he  cannot  be  taught  to  stay  on  the  trot, 
he  will  not  race  successfully.  Noth- 
ing is  better  known  to  the  horse  breeder, 
than  that  if  you  breed  to  ^ '  fool  horses, '  ^  you 


76  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

will  get  ^^fool  horses/^  but,  if  ^intelligent 
horses''  are  mated,  ^intelligent  foals''  re- 
snlt.  Like  produces  like,  or  a  likeness  of  a 
former  ancestor.  This  same  law  applies 
with  equal  accuracy  in  human  heredity. 
Brain  power,  like  gold,  is  of  different  de- 
grees of  fineness — it  may  be  1  carat,  l4 
carat  or  21  carat,  and  can  only  be  secured 
from  its  source.  Neither  brains  nor  water 
will  rise  higher  than  their  source.  To  ex- 
pect to  produce  a  great  or  eminent  man 
from  the  mediocre  strata  of  the  race  is  as 
foolish  as  to  expect  to  secure  a  world's 
champion  trotter  from  the  mating  of  scrub 
horses. 

Not  so  many  years  ago,  a  few  of  us  be- 
came interested  in  eugenics,  and  started 
a  campaign  of  enlightenment,  C.  B.  Dav- 
enport was  our  leader.  Since  that  time, 
laws  relating  to  the  marriages  of  defectives 
have  been  passed  in  some  12  Western 
States;  and  laws  for  the  sterilization  of 
those  who  are  hopelessly  unfit  to  produce 
have  been  passed  in  some  six  Western 
States.  In  Indiana,  alone,  900  defective 
men  recently  were  sterilized.    Our  Eastern 


WRONG  WAYS  OF  HANDLING  DISEASES     77 

States,  respecting  hygienic  and  eugenic 
laws  and  regulations,  are  behind  the  West, 
and  as  the  result  the  appalling  number  of 
socially  diseased  people  that  we  have  in 
the  East  today  is  greater  than  the  same 
class  in  the  West.  Not  very  long  ago, 
the  percentage  was  the  other  way.  In 
Western  mining  towns,  in  some  States, 
where  the  laws  of  examinations  and  certifi- 
cates are  weekly  issued,  you  seldom  find  a 
diseased  man  or  woman  today.  In  Lexing- 
ton, Ky.,  The  Purity  League  broke  up  the 
fast  houses,  instead  of  enforcing  the  exam- 
ination and  certificate  system,  with  the  re- 
sult that  at  night  the  Pikes  and  fields  are 
filled  with  such  people  who  formerly  fre- 
quented the  fast  houses. 

Now,  my  indulgent  reader,  with  these 
appalling  facts  before  you,  is  it  not  time  to 
call  a  halt,  and  for  every  parent  to  instruct 
his  or  her  sons  and  daughters  as  to  the 
preliminary  investigations  which  they 
should  make  before  they  allow  their  fan- 
cies to  run  away  with  their  reason?  Today 
young  people  who  marry  have  as  much 
thought  about  the  offspring  of  their  mar- 


78  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

riages  as  the  mustang  on  the  prairies. 
Knowledge  comes  too  late;  they  spend  the 
rest  of  their  lives  in  tears  and  regrets. 

Don't  forget  how  often,  on  a  moonless 
night,  a  stray  Tom-cat  from  another  block 
meets  a  young  Tabby  on  your  back  fence, 
and  awakens  the  whole  block  with  her  pain- 
ful cat-a-wails,  and  his  joyous  cat-a-balls, 
as  they  announce  to  the  world  that  their 
happy  marriage  is  one  of  love  at  first  sight. 
The  old  shoes,  tumblers  and  angry  words, 
which  you  and  your  neighbors  fling  at  them, 
have  no  effect, — they  are  so  madly  in  love ! 
Pause!  Is  this  not  a  fair  example. of  some 
of  the  thoughtless  marriages  of  today? 

EVILS  OF  LABOR  UNIONS. 

Today,  we  hear  on  all  sides  complaints 
as  to  our  help,  that  help  of  today  cannot  do 
as  much  work  as  the  help  of  30  or  40  years 
ago;  that  they  are  not  as  healthy  or  as 
strong.  The  Labor  Unions,  today,  recog- 
nize this  fact  and  demand  that  the  healthy 
vigorous  laboring  man  must  not  do  as 
much  work  as  his  physical  and  mental  pow- 
ers will  allow  him  to  do,  as  it  would  reflect 


LABOR   UNIONS   BREED   WEAKLINGS       79 

on  his  weakling  brother-workman  to  his  det- 
riment; that  all  wages  must  be  alike  for 
the  willing,  strong,  healthy  and  tem- 
perate workman  as  for  the  weak,  drunken 
and  dissipated  workman.  This  is  tan- 
tamount to  putting  a  premium  on  drunk- 
enness and  physical  infirmities.  That 
the  weakling  workman's  hours,  that  he 
is  able  to  stand  up  and  work,  shall  be 
the  limit  of  the  number  of  hours  that 
his  stronger  brother-in-labor  shall  be 
allowed  to  work;  and  the  amount  of  work 
the  weakling  is  able  to  perform,  shall  be 
the  limit  of  work  the  strong,  healthy,  robust 
and  temperate  workman  shall  be  allowed 
to  work.  That  is  to  say,  it  shall  be  no  bene- 
fit to  a  man  to  have  the  physique,  the  health 
and  the  inclination  to  work  and  to  raise 
himself  above  his  fellow-workmen,  but  that 
this  good  man  shall  be  kept  down  to  the 
level  of  his  degenerate,  weakling  co-worker. 
The  labor  unions  have  declared  that  no  man 
shall  be  paid  on  the  scale  of  value  his 
labors  or  his  ability  to  accomplish  import- 
ant matters  should  entitle  him  to  receive, 
as  it  would  reflect  and  expose  to  the  world 


80  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

his  weakling  fellow-laborer.  If  there  be  an 
argument  to  prove  the  decay  of  a  nation's 
workmen  and  their  open  acknowledgment 
of  it,  we  have  it  right  here  in  the  stand 
taken  by  the  labor  unions  of  the  United 
States. 

We  breed  horses  with  even  temperaments 
and  quiet  dispositions  to  be  easily  handled, 
to  weigh  2,000  to  3,000  pounds  or  more, 
and  to  haul  great  loads  and  carry  great 
burdens,  such  as  the  ^^Clysdales,''  ^^Perch- 
erons,"  ''Belgians,"  and  the  ''Horse  of 
Gaul.''  Each  of  these  is  classified;  each 
has  its  own  Kegistry;  each  its  value  as 
to  its  strength,  disposition  and  ability  to 
stand  hard  work  or  carry  great  loads ;  each 
their  stud  fee,  graded  as  to  their  colt's 
value.  The  value  of  each  is  proportionate 
to  the  cost  of  his  keep,  his  longevity  and 
his  ability  to  do  the  work  which  he  is  called 
upon  to  do  without  straining  his  reserve 
powers.  We  all  know  that  during  the  times 
of  the  Knights  in  Armour  horses  were  bred 
to  carry  over  600  pounds ;  and  what  can  be 
done  in  breeding  a  horse  can  be  done  in  the 
same  proportion  with  the  human. 


LABOR  REGISTRY  VS.  DELEGATES         81 

The  ancestral  records  of  these  breeds 
take  up  all  these  points  and  establish  the 
value  of  the  draft  horse  of  the  different 
breeds,  to  the  farmer,  the  cartman,  the 
drayman,  etc.  The  life  germs  in  the  semen 
of  these  horses  of  burden  are  large  oval 
globules,  docile  and  slow  in  their  nature  and 
movement;  not  of  the  fine,  active,  quick, 
energetic  nature  that  one  finds  in  the 
Thoroughbred  or  the  American  trotter,  etc., 
the  product  of  Combination  I, 

THE  LABOK  REGISTRY 

Why  do  not  we  breed  human  beings  to 
endure  hard  work  and  do  it  with  ease,  with- 
out straining,  just  as  we  breed  the  dray- 
horses,  above  cited?  Let  us  have  a  Regis- 
try for  our  laboring  classes,  and  breed  them 
so  that  their  actual  value  will  be  known  to 
themselves,  the  public  and  their  prospec- 
tive wives;  and  the  amount  of  labor  they 
are  able  to  perform  can  be  estimated  and 
they  be  paid  accordingly.  What  an  incen- 
tive this  will  be  to  elevate  and  improve  the 
breed  of  the  laboring  class.  This  will  do 
away  with  the  crying  need  of  labor  unions. 


82  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

for  walking  delegates,  business  agents  and 
bomb  throwers  to  protect  the  weaklings  of 
their  number,  for  then  there  will  be  no 
weaklings  for  unions  and  walking  delegates 
to  protect.  We  can  thus  divide  the  laboring 
community  into  classes — those  that  come 
from  healthy,  good,  sober,  long-lived,  hard- 
boned  ancestry,  with  great  strength,  that 
have  done  great  service  for  so  many  years, 
and  lived  temperate,  good  lives,  and  are 
able  to  work  ten  or  twelve  hours  a  day  with- 
out straining  themselves  or  to  carry  or  lift 
from  200  to  1,000  pounds,  and  weigh  from 
200  to  400  pounds  or  more;  and  then  the 
ages  at  which  their  ancestors  died  and  from 
what  they  died,  the  number  of  their  children 
and  their  children's  strength  and  early  ma- 
turity. These  characteristics  could  all  be 
arranged  and  the  laboring  men  be  graded  in 
classes.  A,  B,  C,  D,  E,  and  F;  F  being  the 
I'owest  class,  with  low  ancestry,  ill  health, 
soft  bones,  sluggish  in  their  movement,  and 
not  calculated  to  produce  children  that 
would  mature  early  and  help  along  the 
household,  etc.  Why,  there  is  no  trouble  to 
breed  any  kind  of  men  you  like,  4  feet  men 
or  7  feet  men — or,  for  instance,  all  to  weigh 


PRACTICAL  BENEFITS  OF  JOCKEY  REGISTRY  83 

60  or  400  pounds,  jnst  as  we  breed  horses. 
It  only  takes  a  longer  time  and  more 
patience. 

THE  eJOCKEY  EEGISTEY. 

There  is  need  of  five  thousand  to  six 
thousand  jockeys  to  ride  the  running  races 
in  this  and  other  countries.  One  can  see  a 
score  of  them  on  our  Pike  on  hot  summer 
days,  dressed  in  heavy  woolen  sweaters, 
running  along  and  swinging  their  arms  un- 
der the  direction  of  their  trainers  to  reduce 
their  weight.  In  England  and  France,  I 
often  have  met  them  in  the  hot  steam  baths, 
for  twenty-four  hours  at  a  time  trying  to 
sweat  off  a  few  extra  pounds,  abstaining 
from  water  and  food.  Jockeys  usually  come 
from  **  Jockey  families''  and  parents  often 
stunt  the  growth  of  their  boys  by  giving 
them  coffee  and  other  drugs  to  keep  them 
small ;  for,  as  a  general  thing,  an  able  small 
jockey  makes  much  more  money  than  a 
large  one. 

The  jockeys  need  intelligence,  strength 
and  activity.  The  severe  starving  and 
sweating  before  a  race  saps  the  acuteness 
of  his  intelligence,  his  energy  and  strength. 


84  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

All  this  starving,  suffering  and  grilling 
these  boys  undergo  to  keep  down  their 
weight  can  be  avoided  by  breeding  for 
smallness,  strength  and  quick  intelligence ; 
and  a  family  of  jockeys  can  be  produced 
who  will  always  be  fit  and  ready  to  meet  any 
racing  requirements.  It  is  just  as  easy  to 
produce  the  jockey  of  the  right  size,  weight, 
and  with  it  all,  intelligence,  as  it  is  to  breed 
ponies  or  half-pound  chickens  and  the  like. 
The  trouble  is  that  a  good  ninety  pound 
jockey  invariably  marries  a  one  hundred 
fifty  or  one  hundred  sixty  pound  woman, 
and,  when  he  is  sixty  years  old,  hi^  weight 
is  one  hundred  and  thirty  pounds  and  her 
weight  two  hundred  pounds.  You  see  in 
their  families  one  hundred  sixty  pound 
daughters  and  one  hundred  thirty  pound 
sons,  and  you  can  better  understand 
their  bitter  disappointment;  how  the  extra 

twenty  or  thirty  pounds  their  sons  possess 
is  their  ruin.  Their  vocation  is  lost.  In- 
telligent mating  would  have  saved  all  this. 
A  ^^  Jockey  Eegistry"  will  come  some  day 
on  this  same  principle.  I  once  collected 
and  bred  a  small  drove  of  miniature  Al- 


LOCOMOTIVE    ENGINEERS'   KEGISTKY       85 

derny  Cows,  which  were  the  result  of  breed- 
ing cows  and  bulls  whose  ancestry  had  all 
been  small. 

Then  will  come  **The  Locomotive  En- 
gineers^ Eegistry,''  where  men  will  be 
bred  with  hereditary  physical  and  mental 
qualities  that  will  best  fit  them  for  their 
special  duties.  On  the  Pennsylvania  Eail- 
road  already  such  families  exist. 

No  old  established  banking  house  in  the 
world  will  take  a  clerk  for  a  position  of 
trust  unless  they  are  satisfied  no  thief  or 
defaulter  ever  existed  in  the  applicant's 
ancestry. 

When  all  this  will  have  been  accom- 
plished, the  working  girl  will  be  able  to  look 
over  the  ancestral  Labor  Eegistry  or 
Jockey  Eegistry  and  the  health  certificate 
of  her  prospective  husband  and  see  in  what 
class  he  belongs.  She  can  go  to  the  Pub- 
lic Eecord  Hall  of  the  town  where  he  was 
born  and  there  check  up  and  verify  this 
— ^whether  he  is  in  the  A  class  or  the  F 
class.  She  would  know  at  a  glance  what 
she  was  getting  for  a  husband,  if  he  would 
be  able,  when  mated  with  her,  to  produce 


86  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

healthy,  strong  children  that  will  mature 
early,  and  whether  her  prospective  husband 
will  be  able  to  support  her  and  their  chil- 
dren properly.  The  trouble  today  is  that 
the  working-girl  marries,  without  thought, 
some  fellow  who  can  dance  nicely  and 
dresses  well,  and,  too  late,  often  discovers 
she  has  married  a  weakling  that  she  has  to 
support.  There  is  hardly  a  big  office  in 
Wall  street  where  this  has  not  happened  to 
one  or  more  of  its  pretty  stenographers. 

The  laboring  classes  are  constantly  in- 
terfered with  by  having  thrown  into  their 
ranks  the  weaklings  of  the  upper  classes. 
Who  is  there  that  has  not  been  importuned 
by  this  and  that  person  to  use  as  a  laborer 
a  relative  or  somebody  of  the  upper  classes  1 

If  the  males  of  laboring  classes  were  com- 
pelled to  have  their  own  Eegistry,  like  the 
**Clysdales,"  *'Percherons,''  and  other 
heavy  draft  Eegistries,  and  submit  to  a 
microscopic  examination  of  their  life  germs, 
as  to  whether  this  or  that  one  had  the  abil- 
ity to  produce  large,  healthy,  strong,  early- 
maturing  children,  free  from  physical 
defects,  who  would  help  to  support  the 


WALKING  DELEGATES  AND  DYNAMITERS  87 

family  and  tlie  parents  when  they  grow 
old — how  much  more  happiness  such  a 
state  of  affairs  would  bring  to  them;  how 
much  more  contentment  you  would  find. 
There  would  be  no  need  for  labor  agitators 
with  big  salaries,  big  traveling  expenses, 
with  retinues  of  clerks,  to  bring  on  strikes 
and  such  things.  There  no  longer  wouM 
be  a  need  of  large  bands  of  dynamiters  to 
blow  up  newspaper  buildings  in  Los  An- 
geles and  in  other  civilized  cities,  nor 
bridges,  so  as  to  give  more  labor,  or  injure 
the  property  or  lives  of  those  who  wish  to 
work  and  be  paid  for  the  value  of  their 
services,  nor  would  honest  labor  be  as- 
sessed to  pay  for  hired  assassins  to  kill 
judges  who  render  decisions  that  are  not 
satisfactory  to  the  laboring  unions,  or  to 
pay  attorneys  to  defend  them  or  witnesses 
to  prove  alibis.  These  are  all  little  things, 
but  they  count  up  to  quite  a  sum  in  the  end. 
It  would  do  away  with  the  expensive  droves 
of  Walking  Delegates,  who  take  money 
from  the  employers  and  hold  up  their  em- 
ployees. The  lowest  and  the  most  miser- 
able trusts  we  have  in  this  country  are  the 


88  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

Labor  Union  Trusts.  Instead  of  leveling 
up,  they  level  down.  They  crush  the  ambi- 
tions to  rise  of  those  deserving.  Their  sole 
purpose  is  to  uphold  the  drunken  and  dissi- 
pated weaklings  of  labor,  and  allow  them  to 
continue  breeding  inferior  children  to  be  a 
charge  upon  the  state,  and  to  handicap  the 
industries  of  our  country  to  their  own 
detriment;  and  compel  pot-house  politi- 
cians to  tell  their  Congressmen  that  they 
must  pass  laws  which  will  exempt  the  Labor 
Union  Trusts  from  being  examined;  but 
must  hold  to  strict  accountability  all  other 
trusts.  To  gain  the  labor  vote  one  .of  our 
highest  officials  even  sold  his  soul  and  be- 
trayed his  country.  The  day  is  not  far  dis- 
tant when  there  will  be  a  clash  at  arms. 
True  Americans  will  not  stand  these  im- 
ported ideas  nor  high  handed  methods. 

Stand  at  the  gate  of  the  Ford  Factory, 
at  Detroit,  at  the  change  of  an  eight-hour 
shift,  either  at  four  P.  M.,  twelve  P.  M.  or 
eight  A.  M.,  and  you  will  see  an  intelligent 
body  of  9,000  laborers  marching  out,  and 
another  body  of  9,000  marching  in.  As  I 
looked  them  over,  I  saw  at  a  glance  that 


FORD'S  IMPORTED  LABORERS      80 

not  one-quarter  of  these  men  were  Amer- 
icans and,  on  inquiry,  I  found  that  three- 
quarters  were  foreigners  (imported  skilled 
mechanics),  as  American  laborers  did  not 
have  the  health,  the  strength  and  capacity 
to  stand  up,  nor  the  stamina,  to  do  the  work 
that  each  was  expected  to  daily  accomplish. 
This  discovery  impressed  upon  me  the  im- 
portance of  having  the  truth  as  to  the  de- 
generacy of  our  nation  widely  known.  I 
have  since  made  inquiry  and  find  that  only 
6,800  of  all  these  36,000  workmen  were  reg- 
istered to  vote.  The  Public  can  now  realize 
why  Labor  Unions  are  silent  regarding 
Ford. 

Not  one  of  these  laborers  belongs  to  a 
labor  organization,  for  each  man  is  paid 
according  to  his  individual  merit  and  value. 
The  healthy,  temperate,  strong  and  ener- 
getic do  not  have  to  give  up  part  of  their 
life  earnings  to  support  their  degenerate, 
drunken  brothers-in-labor  to  keep  them 
alive  to  produce  more  weaklings  that  their 
healthy  children  and  the  state  will  have, 
hereafter,  to  support. 

No  man  whose  services  are  worth  less 


90  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

than  $5.00  per  day  is  employed  at  Ford's. 
They  do  not  have  to  pay  a  share  of  their 
money  to  support  drunken  Walking  Dele- 
gates. Ford  has  no  strikes,  no  hold-ups  and 
employs  36,000  men  and  earned  last  year 
about  $60,000,000  net — and  that  is  why, 
when  your  expensive  auto  breaks  down,  a 
Ford  always  helps  you  out. — A  Ford 
always  gets  there! 

BIRTH  CONTROL. 

When  the  defectives  have  been  cut  off 
from  the  power  of  reproduction,  the  next 
step  is  to  teach  the  class  above  them  how  to 
practice  **  birth  controP'  to  which  no  excep- 
tion could  be  taken.  The  unskilled  man 
plays  an  important  role  in  the  industrial 
world.  He  lacks  the  intelligence,  the  self- 
control,  and  the  power  to  limit  the  number 
of  his  children.  Two  or  three  are  all  he  can 
care  for  properly,  yet  the  number  may  go 
so  high  as  to  reduce  the  home  to  absolute 
want.  Today,  educated  machinery  is  tak- 
ing the  place  of  much  of  the  manual  labor, 
and  the  need  of  human  labor  will  not  in- 
crease in  the  same  ratio  as  the  increase  in 
our  population. 


BIRTH  CONTROL  IN  OTHER  COUNTRIES    91 

From  the  report  of  the  recent  Eugenic 
Congress,  it  would  appear  that  methods  of 
birth  control,  other  than  those  I  advocate, 
are  practiced  in  Australia  and  certain  coun- 
tries of  Europe,  with  the  sanction  of  these 
Governments. 

Let  us  take  Holland,  for  instance.  Here, 
since  1895,  Government  officials  have  direct- 
ed physicians  and  midwives  to  instruct  the 
common  people  how  to  practice  birth  con- 
trol, with  the  result  that  the  recent  death 
rate  and  infantile  mortality  has  decreased 
while  the  population  has  increased.  Fewer 
children  are  born,  but  more  live,  and  these 
are  better  physically  and  mentally ;  and  the 
indications  are  that  the  population  is  now 
increasing  instead  of  steadily  diminishing, 
as  it  had  been. 

Much  of  the  vast  sums  distributed  as 
charitv  serves  to  house,  clothe  and  feed 
families  made  indigent  by  a  self-indulgence 
which  gives  to  the  family  more  children 
than  their  income  can  support.  Organized 
society  must  protect  itself  in  some  way 
from  this  class.  These  people  are  a  menace 
to  society  because  of  their  rapid  increase 


92  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

in  numbers.  This  is  due  to  early  mar- 
riages and  exceedingly  large  families.  The 
boys  and  girls  of  this  class  do  not  like 
school  with  its  discipline  and  self-control. 
Most  of  them  could  not  master  more  than  a 
few  grades  at  best.  They  leave  school  in 
the  teens,  get  a  ^^job"  and  then  marry,  if, 
indeed,  they  do  not  marry  before  the  job 
is  secured.  There  is  no  forethought,  no 
calculating  the  cost  of  marriage,  nor  of 
their  fitness  to  produce  children  that  will 
be  an  improvement  on  themselves.  The 
impulse  to  mate  is  there  as  in  the  wild 
things  of  the  forest  and  it  is  exercised  with 
almost  as  much  indifference  as  to  results. 
Should  a  child  of  ability,  by  some  miracle, 
come  into  such  a  home,  it  would  have  no 
more  chance  to  rise  than  a  *^  Peter  the 
Great  ^'  colt  would  have  to  distinguish  him- 
self working  with  a  team  of  mules  on 
some  remote  farm.  The  hard  knocks  and 
labor  soon  would  render  inherent  ability 
valueless. 

The  small  family  of  the  better  classes 
cannot  be  enlarged  greatly.  Their  mar- 
riage is  late,  due  to  the  necessity  for  an 


GERMS  93 

education.  The  actual  time  spent  in  school 
and  university  often  brings  the  young  peo- 
ple well  up  in  the  twenties.  After  gradu- 
ation, comes  an  apprenticeship,  or  some 
period  of  getting  established,  which  runs 
over  the  thirties  before  marriage  is  pos- 
sible. The  tremendous  pressure  under 
which  the  men  and  women  who  are  carrying 
the  burdens  of  industry  must  live,  makes 
many  children  in  the  home  impossible.  The 
highly  organized  nervous  system,  neces- 
sary to  exercise  great  brain  power,  often 
makes  reproduction  difficult.  It  has  been 
found  among  female  animals,  as  well  as 
among  humans,  that  the  better  the  one  is 
bred,  the  less  the  number  of  her  offspring. 

GERMS. 

Speaking  of  germs — few  understand  that 
there  are  as  many  kinds  and  breeds  of 
germs  as  there  are  kinds  of  flowers  and 
kinds  of  leaves  on  the  trees.  Each  germ  has 
its  specific  duty  and  errand  in  life  and, 
when  it  is  performed,  it  leaves  its  abode  for 
new  quarters  and  new  work. 

The  germs  of  diphtheria  neither  inter- 


94  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

breed  nor  have  anything  to  do  with  the 
germs  of  infantile  paralysis.  The  same  is 
true  of  the  germs  of  grippe,  and  of  the 
germs  of  syphilis.  They  are  as  widely  sep- 
arated as  the  elephant  is  from  the  giraffe  in 
larger  animals. 

None  of  ns  appreciate  the  power  or  the 
rapid  action  and  movement  of  germs.  As 
an  illustration,  a  scourge  of  abortions,  or, 
as  we  breeders  term  them,  ^  *  slips, ' '  visited 
the  various  stock  farms  of  our  district  three 
years  ago.  These  slips  seemed  to  be  abso- 
lutely painless  and  to  have  no  injurious 
after-effects.  I  have  seen  a  mare,  while 
peacefully  grazing,  apparently,  uncon- 
sciously slip  her  colt ;  and  26  others  in  the 
same  paddock  did  likewise. 

Science  was  called  to  our  aid,  and  we  dis- 
covered, at  last,  the  ^  *  slip-bug, '  ^  bacillus 
abortive  equinno,  that  produced  these  con- 
tagious abortions.  It  was  isolated  and 
grown  in  gelatine  and  the  State  of  Ken- 
tucky today  is  spending  a  fortune  to  dis- 
cover a  germ  that  will  kill  the  *^ slip-bug'^ 
germ. 

There,  on  my  desk  right  from  the  labora- 


SEEMING  INTELLIGENCE  OF  GERMS    95 

tory  of  the  Kentucky  State  University,  is  a 
small  bottle  of  these  cultures,  peacefully 
growing  and  multiplying.  No  one  to  look 
at  them  would  dream  of  their  power  or  of 
their  seeming  intelligence. 

A  small  quantity  of  this  culture  injected 
into  a  mare,  or,  in  fact,  just  placed  on  the 
eyelid,  produces  a  certain  and  painless 
abortion  in  a  few  days.  We  have  tried  it 
on  various  domestic  animals  with  the  same 
absolutely  certain  result,  the  only  differ- 
ence being  the  length  of  time  it  takes  to 
accomplish  its  purpose. 

Now,  just  follow  me.  The  instant  that 
culture  touches  the  blood  of  the  system,  it 
begins  to  reproduce  and  to  breed  by  the 
millions — and  away  they  rush,  as  with  the 
speed  of  lightning,  to  just  one  spot.  They 
know  that  spot  by  hereditary  instinct.  It 
is  the  membrane  that  holds  the  fetus ;  and, 
when  they  have  eaten  it  up  and  detached  It 
from  its  surroundings,  out  comes  the  fetus, 
germs  and  all,  no  blood,  no  pain,  no  after- 
effects, nature  has  attended  to  all — how 
marvelous ! 

It  is  unfortunate  that  a  combination  of 


96  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

causes,  like  education,  apprenticeship  and 
leadership,  renders  it  necessary  for  the 
families  to  be  small  among  the  better  class- 
es of  society.  There  is  no  hope  for  a 
change.  As  a  compensation,  the  improvi- 
dent must  be  taught  to  better  their  condi- 
tion by  having  only  healthy  early  maturing 
children,  who  can  be  properly  reared  and 
educated  so  as  to  assist  in  the  support  of 
the  family. 

CHILD  LABOE. 

A  well  known  magazine  writer  was  dis- 
cussing with  me,  recently,  the  conditions  of 
child-labor  in  the  families  of  the  South, 
which  he  had  been  sent  to  investigate.  To 
this,  he  is  much  opposed.  He  described,  in 
most  graphic  terms,  the  anemic,  undersized, 
sallow-complexioned  and  narrow,  flat- 
chested  and  stoop-shouldered  children,  add- 
ing that  it  was  a  crime  for  them  to  work.  I 
insisted  that  the  children  must  work  or  go 
hungry  and  naked,  as  their  parents  cannot 
support  them,  as  they,  also,  are  physical 
weaklings  as  were  their  ancestors.  He 
replied  that  the  United  States  Government 


CHILD  LABOR  97 

should  feed  them  and  look  after  them  and 
that  was  the  only  way  out  of  it. 

I  am  opposed  to  child-labor;  I  am  op- 
posed to  the  slum  conditions  in  which  chil- 
dren of  laboring  classes  often  are  raised 
in  our  cities,  towns,  mining  camps,  and  in 
cabins  and  tenement  houses  throughout  our 
rural  territory.  What  is  the  reason  for 
slum  conditions  in  cities,  town  and  coun- 
try? The  cause  is  due  to  the  inherent  nature 
of  the  parents.  They  are  content  with  mean 
surroundings ;  they  are  willing  to  have  their 
children  grow  up  in  the  filth  and  noise  of 
the  city.  They  little  care,  even  if  they  are 
hungry  and  naked.  They  are  indifferent 
to  factory  exactions,  so  long  as  the  child  can 
earn  money  for  beer  or  whiskey. 

There  were  assembled  in  a  poorhouse  of 
New  York  State,  some  years  ago,  the  in- 
mates, for  inspection  by  a  party  of  field 
workers  led  by  a  great  scientist.  Inmates 
were  examined  whose  ancestors  for  four 
generations  had  been  cared  for  in  this  same 
institution. 


98  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

^^Say  something  to  my  students,"  re- 
quested the  learned  professor  to  the  super- 
intendent of  the  poorfarm. 

He  replied,  ^  ^  I  have  but  one  thing  to  say 
to  them  and  to  society,  *quit  breeding 
them.'  " 

Many  of  us  have  found  a  nest  of  part- 
ridge eggs  and  put  them  under  a  hen  and 
hatched  them  out.  In  a  day  or  two,  the  call 
of  the  wild  is  so  strong  in  their  hereditary 
instinct,  that  off  they  go,  and  that  is  the 
last  you  see  of  them.  Just  so,  poor-house 
bred  children  come  back  to  poor-houses; 
it's  inbred  in  them. 

A  young  lad}^,  now  20  years  old,  when  she 
goes  to  sleep,  turns  over  on  her  back  and 
hangs  her  head  over  the  side  of  the  bed. 
Her  mother,  whom  she  has  never  seen,  did 
the  same.  Is  this  not  proof  that  traits  are 
hereditary? 

HOW    THE     CITY    OF    CHURCHES 

LOOKS  AFTER  ITS  CHILDREN 

AND  THEIR  AMUSEMENTS. 

The  Queens  Borough  Park  Department 
^of  Brooklyn,  in  the  past  six  years,  has  spent 


BROOKLYN'S   INTEREST   IN   CHILDREN    99 

$37,984.00  for  its  Park  Commissioners  to 
ride  around  and  see  that  the  children  in 
the  parks  of  the  congested  districts  were 
properly  amused  and  cared  for ;  but,  in  that 
time,  they  spent  only  $6,638.00  on  amuse- 
ment for  these  children. 

This  year,  under  the  Municipal  Central 
Garage  plan,  the  budget  assigned  $5,386  to 
auto  rides  for  these  very  busy  guardians  of 
our  children  to  see  that  these  children  are 
properly  amused ;  and  $939.  for  the  amuse- 
ment of  the  children. 

In  1914,  one  commissioner  got  a  car  from 
the  city  that  cost  $6,852.00.  And,  when  an 
autoist  injures  one  of  these  little  ones,  who 
is  playing  in  the  street,  the  Judicial  Depart- 
ment of  that  great  city,  and  that  band  of 
ambulance-chasing  attorneys  who  infest 
our  City  Courts,  cry  out  against  the  care- 
less rich  auto  owners  who  pay  the  taxes 
that  give  $6  to  a  few  commissioners  to  ride 
around  to  every  $1  given  for  the  amusement 
of  these  children  with  the  result  that  the 
children  play  in  the  streets.  Let  the  think- 
ing voters  decide,  at  the  next  election,  if  it 


100  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

would  not  be  better  to  let  these  Park  Guar- 
dians walk  and  these  children  do  the  riding. 
Straws  tell  which  way  the  wind  blows; 
and  the  above  will  give  the  public  an  idea 
of  the  thought  given  to  children  in  the  City 
of  Churches  by  their  city  guardians. 

SOME  RACES  ARE  BACKWARD. 

The  humblest  animal  and  the  most  un- 
civilized human  instinctively  know  how  bet- 
ter to  care  for  themselves,  to  secure  food, 
or  to  avoid  injury,  than  do  the  more  highly 
bred  animal  and  man.  But,  when  you 
start  to  train  them,  you  will  find  that  the 
better  and  higher  bred  have  the  greatest 
amount  of  intelligence.  They  yield  to  train- 
ing as  the  others  do  not. 

I  breed  wild  turkeys  because  they  are 
hardier  than  tame  turkeys,  and  their  de- 
scendants, even  when  crossed  with  tame 
turkeys,  have  hereditary  instincts  that 
make  them  take  better  care  of  themselves 
than  the  tame  turkey,  so  that,  in  a  flock 
of  forty  young  turkeys  that  are  half-wild, 
you  are  pretty  sure  to  raise  thirty-five  of 
them.    If  they  are  tame  and  there  is  rainy 


YOUNG  NEGRO  CHILDREN'S  PRECOCITY  101 

weather,  you  probably  would  not  raise 
twenty  of  them. 

The  negro  child  appears  very  precocious 
during  early  life.  I  believe  the  natural  in- 
stincts of  the  negro  babe  are  more  acute 
than  those  of  the  white  child.  His  musical 
talent  is  pronounced  in  early  childhood,  but, 
when  he  reaches  a  certain  stage,  we  find  an 
inpenetrable  wall,  beyond  which  there  can 
be  no  future  accomplishment.  The  record 
in  the  first  and  second  grades  of  school  at 
Lexington,  Kentucky,  for  negroes,  shows 
that  the  grades  are  made  with  little  diffi- 
culty. The  third  and  fourth  grades  tell  an- 
other story.  Eeports  show  a  large  per  cent, 
who  cannot  make,  in  one  year,  the  third 
grade,  or  any  higher  grades.  The  mind  of 
the  negro  gets  its  maturity  at  the  end  of  the 
second  or  third  or  fourth  grade,  as  the  case 
may  be.  No  system  of  teaching  can  correct 
it.  It  is  due  to  the  inherent  fiber  of  the 
brain  that  only  can  be  changed  by  a  process 
of  evolution  which  may  take  some  thou- 
sands of  years  to  accomplish. 

There  is  in  Africa,  today,  a  race  of  black 
Jews,  claiming  to  be  descendants  of  King 


102  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

Solomon  and  the  Queen  of  Sheba.  These 
black  Jews  have  followed  the  ancient 
usages  and  customs  of  the  Jewish  race  from 
the  date  of  the  Christian  era ;  they  wander 
about  only  intermarrying  among  them- 
selves. 

I  met  one  of  these  jet  black  specimens. 
He  had  a  poise,  a  refinement  and  an  intel- 
lectual development  at  least  five  hundred 
years  ahead  of  the  negroes  we  have  here. 
His  facial  features  showed  he  was  Jewish. 
Breeding  did  this. 

I  knew  Booker  T.  Washington  well,  and 
felt  sure  that  he  must  have  white  blood 
from  ancestors  of  ability.  I  went  right 
down  into  the  country  where  he  was  born 
and  soon  found  that  his  real  father  was  a 
white  man  of  old  Virginia  ancestry.  When 
Mr.  Washington  next  came  to  New  York,  I 
invited  him  to  my  home.  I  discussed 
with  him  how  the  negro  race  should  be  ele- 
vated and  told  him  who  his  real  father  was. 
He  did  not  deny  it  and  stated  that  a  lady 
relative  of  this  gentleman  had  been  very 
kind  to  him  in  early  life,  and  he  supposed 

that  was  the  cause. 

h'  *'■  ■■■■'■{ 


SUB-NORMAL  CHILDREN  103 

SUB-NORMAL  CHILDREN  IN  NEW 
YORK  PUBLIC  SCHOOLS. 

To  ascertain  the  trend  of  the  American 
race,  which  is  either  on  the  upward  or  down- 
ward course,  I  have  analyzed  the  statistics 
of  the  city  schools  of  New  York  City,  dated 
July  31,  1915.  The  statistics  available 
show  that  New  York  City  has  as  good  con- 
ditions as  the  other  cities  of  the  United 
States,  better  in  fact,  than  some  cities  like 
Philadelpliia,  Cincinnati,  Boston,  Newark, 
New  Orleans  or  Cleveland.  I  believe  we 
can  count  on  conditions  in  New  York  being 
as  good,  if  not  better,  than  the  average  con- 
dition prevailing  in  the  United  States,  as 
a  nation.  One  exception,  of  course,  must  be 
made  to  this  statement — in  any  comparison 
of  subnormals,  the  negro  of  the  South  must 
be  excepted,  as  the  whole  race  is  more  or 
less  backward. 

In  the  report  ending  June  30,  1915,  I 
studied  the  figures,  carefully  compiled  by 
the  Superintendent  of  the  Schools  of  New 
York,  to  ascertain  the  per  cent,  of  those 
who  fall  below  normal  in  their  school  work. 
There  is  in  New  York  City,  as  well  as  in 


104  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

all  average  commnnities,  a  large  niimber  of 
defective  cMldren  with  troubles  of  the  eye, 
ear,  or  defective  throat,  body  or  brain. 
These  are  not  to  be  considered  in  the  fig- 
ures to  be  given.  These  defectives  that 
come  under  the  School  Superintendent's  ob- 
servation will  run  close  to  two  per  cent,  and, 
when  the  inmates  of  the  asylums,  jails, 
homes,  retreats  and  penitentiaries  are  add- 
ed to  the  gross  congenital  defective  chil- 
dren, we  have  about  six  per  cent,  of  all  our 
children  who  are  so  far  below  normal  that 
they  become  a  burden  to  the  public  or  so- 
ciety. 

Superintendent  Maxwell  states  that  in 
New  York  City  the  average  promotions  for 
the  years  of  1914  and  1915  was  88.8%. 

There  were,  in  the  grades  from  lA  and 
B,  to  8A  and  B,  inclusive,  640,534  children, 
(not  counting  defectives  and  irregulars), 
and  of  the  number  582,909  were  promoted 
June  30,  1915.  As  above  stated,  this  is 
88.8%  as  an  average  for  each  of  all  the 
grades.  It  is  not  so  alarming  to  find  that 
11.2%  of  the  children  of  each  grade  are  sub- 
normal or  unable  to  make  the  next  grade 


N.  Y.  CITY  SCHOOL  REPORT  105 


without  an  extra  year  spent.  But  11.1 
of  subnormality  does  not  tell  the  whole 
story  by  any  means.  The  11.2%  is  the 
average  percentage  of  deficiency  for  each 
grade.  If  11.2%  fail  in  the  first  grade  and 
11.2  7o  fail  out  of  the  second  grade,  the  next 
year,  and  in  the  same  manner  to  the  end  of 
the  eighth  grade,  it  gives  us  the  full  amount 
of  subnormality.  The  table  exhibiting  this 
is  instructive.  Should  we  start  with  a  given 
number  of  100  children,  for  illustration,  the 
result  would  be,  as  follows :  and  would  show 
the  percentage  of  subnormals  in  each  grade, 
each  year. 


*Grades 

Percentage 

A&B 

Promoted 

% 

J^'ailed 

1st 

88.8  % 

11.2 

11.2 

2nd 

78.85% 

9.94 

21.15 

3rd 

70.02% 

8.83 

29.98 

4th 

62.18% 

7.84 

37.82 

5th 

55.22% 

6.96 

44.78 

6  th 

49.03% 

6.18 

50.97 

7th 

43.54% 

5.49 

56.46 

8th 

38.70% 

4.83 

61.30 

*Pages  272,  273,  274,  ' '  17th  Annual  Re- 
port, 1915.'' 


106  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

Out  of  each  hundred,  if  we  take  Super- 
intendent MaxwelPs  statements,  there 
would  be  only  38.70  left  on  the  average  at 
the  end  of  the  eighth  grade,  or,  according  to 
the  record  of  the  New  York  Schools,  61.30% 
are  subnormal  when  the  eight  years  are  in- 
cluded— that  is,  at  the  end  of  eight  years, 
or,  when  the  average  child  is,  say,  14  years 
old.  I  am  aware  that,  in  my  supposition  to 
show  the  percentage  that  would  fail  each 
year,  it  is  not  quite  fair.  Some  who  fail  in 
a  low  grade  will  be  sure  to  fail  in  a  higher 
one,  and  so  be  counted  twice  in  my  scheme. 
The  actual  figures  are  not  easy  to  secure. 

During  the  school  year,  ending  June  30, 
1915,  there  was  a  total  promotion  from 
the  8th  grade  to  the  9th  of  45,730.  Of 
these,  22,052  were  promoted  at  the  end  of 
the  first  term  and  23,678  at  the  end  of  the 
year,  June  30,  1915.  That  is  to  say,  45,730 
children  completed  in  1915  the  eight  grades 
of  the  grammar  school. 

Contrast  this  number  with  the  enroll- 
ment of  the  first  grade  for  the  same  year. 
In  the  A.  Division  of  the  first  grade,  dur- 
ing the  year,  were  a  total  of  117,516,  or 


BELOW   THE    STANDARD  107 

71,786  more  entered  the  first  grade  than 
those  who  completed  the  eighth  grade. 

The  most  optimistic  view  one  can  take 
is  to  say  that  from  50%  to  60%  of  the  chil- 
dren of  the  City  of  New  York  are  below 
average  normality;  and,  as  subnormals, 
below  the  standard  set  by  the  common 
schools  of  New  York  for  children  of  that 
age.  To  this  must  be  added  the  defectives 
and  irregulars. 

The  actual  figures  for  lA  grade  are  71,- 
322  enrolled;  advanced  to  IB  on  January 
31,  1915,  54,589;  total  dropped  in  five 
months,  25,128.  There  were  enrolled  in 
lA,  for  the  second  term,  Feb.  9,  1915,  46,- 
194,  while,  in  the  promotion  on  June  30, 
to  IB  were  36,099.  The  first  term,  the  fail- 
ures in  the  lA  grade  were  22.7%.  The  sec- 
ond term,  the  failures  in  the  lA  division 
were  22.9%. 

To  start  with,  there  were  22.7%  to  22.9% 
of  subnormals  in  the  1st  A  grade.  As  above 
shown,  the  failures  continue  each  year, 
which,  on  the  average,  through  8  years, 
amount  to  11.2%.  The  reason  for  this  is 
that  in  different  families  the  mental  growth 


108  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

is  reached  at  different  ages.  Some  cease 
to  grow  mentally  at  the  end  of  the  3rd  and 
4th  grade.  Others  go  on  to  the  6th  and 
7th  grade.  When  their  mental  growth 
ceases,  it  is  useless  to  continue  them  in 
school  and  it  is  a  burden  to  the  taxpayers. 
Besides,  none  of  those  who  pay  90%  of  our 
New  York  City's  Public  School  expendi- 
tures which,  for  the  year  ending  July  15, 
1915,  amounted  to  $44,970,857.28,  send 
their  children  to  our  Public  Schools.  See 
p.  385,  of  *^ Board  of  Education  Eeport, 
for  year  ending  July  31,  1915.'' 

I  can  breed  a  horse  that  will,  trot  as 
fast  as  a  two-year-old  as  he  ever  will,  but 
he  is  of  no  account.  I  want  a  horse  to  go 
on  developing.  So  I  explain  the  50%  fail- 
ures in  the  eight  grades  of  the  grammar 
schools  on  this  basis.  It  is  largely  due  to 
the  fact  that  the  brain  power  of  the  sub- 
normals carries  them  up  to  a  certain  grade, 
and  then  it  ceases  because  it  is  full  grown. 
It  does  not  pay  the  State  to  try  and  edu- 
cate these  50%  of  subnormals  beyond  that 
age,  or  beyond  the  grade  at  which  their 
brain  power  has  reached  its  limit. 


QUIT  BREEDING  DEFECTIVES  109 

There  are  60,000  feeble-minded  persons 
in  our  public  institutions,  and  over  20,000 
outside. 

When,  in  Eussia,  I  tested  their  trotting 
horses,  I  found  the  breed  to  be  peculiar; 
they  were  well  calculated  for  the  uses 
of  the  country,  in  that  all  of  them  could 
trot  a  mile  in  2 :50,  and  pull  heavy  weights ; 
few  could  do  better.  Few  2 :50  horses  could 
be  trained,  as  a  rule,  to  go  faster.  That 
was  the  limit  of  their  speed.  They  suit  the 
.conditions  in  Eussia.  Just  so,  to  try  to 
educate  these  50%  of  subnormal  pupils 
beyond  their  limit,  would  make  them  un- 
happy and  unfitted  for  the  positions  their 
breeding  had  preordained  they  should  fill. 

Permit  me  to  say  to  the  parents  and 
teachers  of  America,  when  the  brain  power 
of  the  child  is  limited,  its  education  stops 
at  that  point.  The  remedy  is  not  more 
schools  for  defectives,  but  to  quit  breeding 
that  kind  of  children,  as  they  do  not  repay 
the  family  and  State  for  the  expense  of 
their  keep  or  education,  and  it  is  not  just  or 
fair  to  the  real  taxpayers  when,  if  proper 
laws  were  passed,  two-thirds  of  this  ex- 


110  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

pense  could  be  obviated.  Why  can  not  we 
have  our  Public  Schools  taken  out  of  the 
hands  of  politicians,  and  have  them  run 
on  a  business  basis!  Today,  if  a  politician, 
or  one  of  his  henchmen,  has  a  son  or 
daughter  who  cannot  earn  a  living  and  he 
or  she  has  a  fair  education,  that  indivdual 
somehow  gets  into  the  public  school  either 
as  a  professor  or  as  a  teacher. 

Another  classification  gives  some  light. 
On  September  18,  1914,  the  schools  of  New 
York  City  had  enrolled  in  the  eight  grades 
684,000  students.  22%  of  them  were  six 
months  or  more  in  advance  of  their  age 
in  the  classification,  or  149,000  (See  p.  308 
of  Eeport)  were  above  normal.  The  normal 
children  numbered  293,500,  or  43%.  The 
grades  and  age  correspond  for  this  class. 
Those  behind  their  grade  for  six  months 
or  more,  numbered  241,500,  or  35%  of  the 
whole.  The  defectives  and  special  classes 
of  students  are  not  included  in  the  num- 
bers given. 

It  is  now  proposed  to  pass  a  general  com- 
pulsory school  law  to  compel  children, 
whether  fit  or  not,  to  go  to  public  school 


PREMIUMS  ON  SUB-NORMALS  111 

until  they  are  14  years  old,  so  as  to  get 
around  the  Child  Labor  Law ;  and  to  fasten 
a  useless  tax  burden  on  property  owners 
that  will  amount  to  $200,000,000  a  year  or 
more ;  as  it  were,  to  put  a  premium  on  sub- 
normals. 

The  great  per  cent,  of  the  subnormals  is 
alarming.  Heredity  is  the  cause  and  the 
sole  cause.  I  present  this  analysis  to 
arouse  an  enlightened  public  sentiment. 
We  first  must  know  the  facts  and  study 
the  conditions,  then  we  are  prepared  to 
act. 

This  report  of  Superintendent  Maxwell 
further  sets  forth  on  page  274,  that  the 
public  school  standard  of  scholarship  in 
the  City  of  Seattle,  Wash.,  93.6,  shows  the 
highest  average  of  intelligence  of  any  pub- 
lic school  system  of  any  city  in  the  United 
States. 


112  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

PUBLIC     SCHOOL     CHILDREN     OF 
SEATTLE  SHOW  GEEAT  INTEL- 
LIGENCE    AND     SEATTLE  ^S 
DEATH-RATE    IS    THE 
LOWEST. 

Now,  let  us  examine  the  history  of  the 
Health  Ordinances  of  the  City  of  Seattle. 
We  find  that  weekly  examinations  and  is- 
suing  of  certificates  to  prostitutes  existed 
with  great  strictness  in  that  city  for  a 
series  of  years,  until  recently,  with  the  re- 
sult that  it  drove  out  all  prostitutes  from 
Seattle  and  the  red-light  district  ceased  to 
exist;  that  the  health  of  its  citizens 
increased  marvelously,  and  its  death  rate 
decreased  so  that  in  1914  it  was  8.1  in 
1,000  (See  report  of  Board  of  Health  and 
Sanitation,  page  4),  so  that  Seattle  leads 
all  cities  in  the  United  States  of  over  100,- 
000  population  in  its  low  death  rate;  that 
the  Public  School  children  of  Seattle  lead 
in  intelligence  those  of  any  other  city  in 
the  United  States.  (See  Supt.  Maxwell's 
report,  p.  274.) 

The  people  in  Seattle,  discovering  this, 
recently  passed  an  ordinance  of  the  strict- 


SEATTLE  PUBLIC  SCHOOL  CHILDREN     113 

est  kind  of  prohibition,  and  all  are  now 
watching  and  waiting  to  see  what  effect 
it  will  have  on  the  health  and  death  rate 
and  on  the  increase  of  intelligence  of  its 
Public  School  children. 

Of  the  small  cities  in  the  United  States, 
in  Norwood,  Ohio,  population  about  18,000, 
where  there  is  a  very  strict  examination  of 
prostitutes  with  certificates,  and  local 
option  is  in  force,  the  death  rate  is  8  in 
1,000,  which  is  the  lowest  of  any  small  or 
large  city  in  the  United  States. 

Compare  these  two  cities,  Seattle  and 
Norwood,  with  the  following  cities,  where 
there  are  no  examinations  or  certificates 
to  prostitutes,  and  where  liquor  is  freely 
sold.  See  U.  S.  Government  Eeport  of 
1912,  page  13. 

Baltimore    -----  18.2 

Boston     -----  16.4 

New  York  -     -     -     -     -  14.66 

St.  Louis      -    -     -     -  14.9 

Chicago      -     -     -    -    -  14.8 


114  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

INFANT  DEATH  BATE  IN  SEATTLE 
1.44  IN  A  THOUSAND;  IN  MAN- 
HATTAN 43.37  IN  A  THOUSAND. 

Now,  let  us  go  back  to  Seattle,  Washing- 
ton. The  Eeport  of  the  Department  of 
Health  and  Sanitation  of  the  City  of  Seat- 
tle for  1912  to  1914,  page  10,  gives  the 
death  rate  of  children  in  Seattle  nnder  5 
years  as  1.44  per  1,000  children.  Contrast 
this  with  the  Eeport  of  the  Department  of 
Health  of  New  York  City  for  1913,  page 
144,  giving  the  death  rate  of  children  under 
5  years  as  36.25  per  1,000;  and,  on  the  Is- 
land of  Manhattan,  it  is  43.37  per  1,000  for 
children  under  5  years  of  age. 

I  could  go  on  and  on,  giving  other  illus- 
trations; but  does  any  intelligent  person 
want  any  better  or  more  complete  proof 
of  the  beneficial  results  to  a  community  of 
the  weekly  medical  examinations  and  li- 
censing of  prostitutes?  Can  you  not  see 
how  it  has  decreased  the  death  rate;  how 
it  has  protected  the  unborn  and  decreased 
the  mortality  of  children  under  5  years  of 
age?  How  it  has  put  the  children  in  the 
Public  Schools  of  the  City  of  Seattle,  in 


NO    PROSTITUTION    IN    SEATTILE         115 

intelligence,  at  the  head  of  all  cities  in 
this  country.  Before  me  lays  a  letter  from 
the  Health  Board  of  Seattle,  which  states 
that  the  enforcement  of  this  Health  Exam- 
ination Ordinance  drove  every  prostitute 
out  of  Seattle,  and  such  a  person  does  not 
exist  there  today.  Now  when  Seattle  keeps 
up  its  two  ordinances  for  20  years  you  will 
see  even  a  much  better  report. 

MAKING  AMEEICAN  CITIZENS. 

Some  years  ago,  early  one  morning,  I  was 
going  down  Center  Street,  New  York  City ; 
there  I  passed  a  line  of  the  most  curious 
specimens  of  humanity  I  ever  saw  collected. 
The  line  was  being  formed  just  south  of 
the  Tombs ;  it  extended  down  Center  Street 
and  around  Chambers  Street,  to  the  west, 
and  up  the  stairs  of  our  City  Court  House ; 
and  thence  to  the  right  into  Supreme  Court, 
Part  No.  2  of  the  Special  Term.  I  left 
my  car  and  talked  with  the  men  who  were 
starting  and  managing  the  line.  They  told 
me  they  were  District  Captains.  They  had 
a  series  of  interpreters  with  them,  who 
were  getting  this  medley  mass  of  humanity 


116  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

into  line.  They  were  blind,  halt,  lame  and 
deformed;  many  of  them  with  unusually 
large  heads;  some  had  small  heads;  many 
had  long  beards;  many  had  running  sores 
at  the  ear  and  at  the  neck;  some  had 
goitres;  some  had  sore  eyes;  many  had 
short  legs  and  long  bodies ;  and  there  were 
men  of  all  shades  of  color,  etc.,  etc.  Every- 
one, as  far  as  I  could  make  out,  was  a  for- 
eigner. They  were  a  mass  of  physical 
monstrosities.  God  knows  from  whence 
they  could  have  been  collected. 

Up  with  this  line,  I  went  into  Part  No. 
2  of  Supreme  Court  of  Special  Term.  I 
forced  my  way  in  and  I  saw  this  great 
crowd  marching  in  and  around,  two  and 
two,  and  marching  out,  never  stopping  a 
minute.  A  man  stood  up,  and  in  a  loud 
voice,  as  rapid  as  a  gatling  gun,  read  a  long 
list  of  names,  all  foreign.  Two  Eepublicans 
and  two  Democrats  who,  I  was  told,  were 
political  leaders,  each  certified  that  they  had 
known  these  men  for  a  long  period  of  time. 
The  line  never  stopped;  it  was  moving  all 
the  time. 

My  heart  sank  within  me  at  the  sight,  ai9 


LEGALLY  MADE  AMERICAN  CITIZENS     117 

I  realized  that  these  ^'What-is-Its'^— had 
become  American  citizens,  their  votes  as 
good  as  yours  and  mine. 

Your  ancestors  and  mine  suffered  and 
died  from  exposure  and  starvation,  or  were 
killed  by  the  Indians  in  the  Plymouth  Rock 
Colony,  that  you  and  I  might  inherit  this 
beautiful  land,  which,  today,  is  in  the  hands 
of  foreigners  and  '^pothouse"  politicians 
because  of  this  foreign  vote;  in  the  hands 
of  men  who  have  no  soul,  no  patriotism, 
whose  sole  interest  is  to  find  out  how  they 
can  make  money  out  of  the  Government 
by  politics  or  by  other  methods. 

CONSERVATION  OF  BRAINS  MAN'S 
GREATEST  DUTY. 

It  now  becomes  necessary  to  call  atten- 
tion to  the  crime  of  crimes  of  this  age. 

The  greatest  and  most  precious  of  the 
world's  treasures  is  the  brain  power  of 
its  men  and  women.  No  man  of  talent 
springs  from  an  ancestry  which  is  without 
ability.  Slowly  and  painfully  have  family 
strains  evolved  by  means  of  happy  matings, 
until  men  of  worth  are  being  produced. 


118  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

The  monumental  folly  of  man  is  to  do  any- 
thing which  will  stop  the  evolution  and  turn 
the  stream  backward.  There  is  a  rather 
innocent  way  in  which  this  is  being  done. 
Men  of  talent  are  marrying  women  of 
beauty,  wealth,  or  social  position,  who  lack 
the  one  necessary  prerequisite  for  mar- 
riage. I  mean  the  lack  of  ability;  or,  the 
reverse  is  all  too  often  true.  A  woman  of 
brilliancy  marries  a  mediocre  man.  None 
of  my  stallions  are  ever  mated  with  cold- 
blooded mares,  nor  are  my  mares  bred  to  a 
''draft  stallion."  Speed  and  endurance 
do  not  come  that  way.  To  get  speed  and 
stamina,  I  must  bring  them  from  both  sides 
of  the  ancestry  of  my  foal. 

For  men  and  women  of  brain  power  to 
marry  into  families  lacking  this  power 
would  be  as  foolish  as  for  me  to  mate 
''Peter  the  Great"  with  a  draft  mare.  I 
would  thus  ruin  that  much  of  the  great 
stallion's  blood.  So  does  a  man  or  woman 
dilute  brain  power  when  it  is  not  matched 
by  a  strain  of  equal  worth.  So  many  ex- 
traneous considerations  enter  into  mar- 
riage selections,  such  as  beauty,  social  posi- 


A  LADY'S  SELECTION  119 

tion,  wealth,  etc.,  that  the  real  object  of 
marriage,  the  mating  of  appropriate 
equals,  is  forgotten. 

A  scrub-horse  and  a  scrub-mare  some- 
times produce  exceptionally  fine  appearing 
colts,  but  I  invariably  find  they  have 
** thrown  back"  to  some  well-bred  ancestor. 
No  sane  breeder  would  breed  from  such 
specimens,  for  he  would  know  of  a  cer- 
tainty he  would  get  worthless  colts. 

The  day  is  not  far  distant  when  mar- 
riageable girls  will  realize  this,  and  search 
the  records  of  the  Eugenic  Bureau,  and  also 
insist  on  a  Certificate  of  Health. 

A  lady  of  rare  breeding,  beauty  and  re- 
finement of  mind,  born  of  illustrious  par- 
ents, who  had  been  reared  on  a  breeding 
farm,  by  force  of  circumstances,  married 
the  son  of  parents  of  low  unhealthy  lineage, 
but  who  were  possessed  of  great  wealth. 
And,  when  forced  to  bear  a  child  or  be 
turned  adrift  in  the  world,  she  went  outside 
and  deliberately  selected  a  stranger  to  be 
the  father  of  her  child,  a  man  of  good  mind 
and  healthy  body,  whom  she  discovered  to 
be  of  good  ancestry.    She  gave  as  her  ex- 


120  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

cuse  that  she  could  not  go  before  her  Maker 
with  the  crime  on  her  head  of  bringing  into 
the  world  an  ill-bred  child,  with  low  tend- 
encies. And  who  could  blame  her,  under 
the  circumstances? 

EVILS  OF  SOCIAL  DISEASES. 

It  is  well-known  that  workers  in  lead  fac- 
tories, where  the  protection  from  the  pois- 
onous gases  is  not  complete,  may  be  injured. 
The  very  strange  thing  about  the  poisonous 
condition  is  that  a  man  so  afflicted  is  liable 
to  beget  children  who  will  not  be  normal. 
The  poisons  penetrate  the  reproductive 
glands,  and  the  effect  of  it  on  the  growing 
embryo  is  to  arrest  normal  development. 
The  workers  in  lead  factories  are  so  few 
and  the  safeguards  are  improving  so  rap- 
idly that  there  is  little  significance  attached 
to  it,  except  to  show  that  a  poison  can 
reach  the  glands  and  be  carried  over  in  the 
germ  cells. 

In  somewhat  the  same  way,  the  social  dis- 
ease acts  as  a  cacogenic  agency  in  race 
poisons.  The  presence  of  the  disease  ren- 
ders  reproduction   difficult  and,   in  most 


EVILS  OF  SOCIAL  DISEASES  121 

cases',  when  transmitted  to  a  wife  by  her 
husband,  it  renders  her  sterile.  Most  ab- 
dominal operations  performed  on  married 
women  are  due  to  the  disease  having  been 
contracted  from  afflicted  husbands.  The 
operation,  as  a  rule,  leaves  the  patient 
sterile.  How  few  women  know  it  or  what 
caused  it!  One  of  New  York's  leading  spe- 
cialists in  the  social  diseases  has  just  stated 
to  me  that  60%  of  the  men  you  meet  on  our 
streets  are  affected  directly  or  by  inheri- 
tance by  the  social  diseases  and  that  80% 
of  the  abdominal  operations  on  women  are 
caused  by  contact  with  their  affected  hus- 
bands. 

Before  me  is  a  statement,  for  the  year 
ending  1915,  of  Dr.  Nevitt,  who  was  for 
nine  years  head  of  the  Kentucky  State  In- 
stitutions for  the  Insane.  It  appears  that 
there  were  in  Kentucky  in  public  institu- 
tions for  defectives,  the  following: 

4500  Insane  and  deaf  in  public  institu- 
tions. 

400  Insane  and  deaf  in  registered  insti- 
tutions. 

600  Blind  in  public  institutions. 


122  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

Of  the  insane  and  deaf,  20%  have  be- 
come so  from  syphilis ;  and  50%  from  alco- 
holism and  heredity. 

Of  the  blind,  90%  have  become  so  from 
syphilis  and  gonorrhea  and  10%  from  he- 
redity. 

This  does  not  cover  the  many  that  are 
not  in  public  institutions  or  those  in  private 
institutions  that  are  not  registered. 

This  number,  Dr.  Nevitt,  who  is  now  the 
head  of  the  Elmwood  Sanitarium,  informs 
me  would  be  very  much  larger,  but  the 
dreaded  ** Pellagra'^  in  1914  affected,  es- 
pecially, defectives  and  carried  off  over 
80%  of  those  affected.  It  is  an  hereditary 
germ  disease  attacking  the  brain,  bowels 
and  skin  and  is  certainly  contagious. 

An  interesting  case  is  on  record  at  one  of 
our  asylums.  Regarding  a  young  married 
man,  insane,  the  diagnosis  of  his  insanity 
was  given  as  being  due  to  the  poison  of 
syphilis,  and  yet  he  did  not  have  the  disease. 
In  fact,  his  life  had  been  above  reproach. 
His  father  soon  followed  him  to  the  asylum 
and  the  diagnosis  of  his  mental  trouble  was 
the  same  as  that  of  his  son.    The  father, 


MORAL  EXAMPLE  OF  WOODROW  WILSON  123 

however,  was  free  from  the  disease,  and 
never  had  been  a  victim  of  it.  A  field  in- 
vestigation revealed  the  fact  that  the 
father's  father  had  died  of  syphilis.  A  son 
born  to  the  young  man,  after  he  had  been 
taken  to  the  asylum,  showed  physical  de- 
formities due  to  the  toxin  of  syphilis.  Here 
is  a  case  of  sending  on  a  poison  which 
cursed  three  generations  of  innocent  people. 
Where  normals  pay  100%  Life  Insurance 
premiums,  syphilitics  pay  188%. 

When  The  Honorable  Josephus  Daniels, 
editor  and  owner  of  the  '^Raleigh  News,'' 
with  a  claimed  circulation  of  100,000, 
awoke  after  the  first  election  of  Wilson, 
he  found  that  the  Secretaryship  of  the 
Navy  had  been  thrust  upon  him — some  say 
because  of  his  knowledge  of  inland  navi- 
gation— and  others  because  of  the  deep 
religious  and  moral  influence  of  the  '^Ral- 
eigh News''  in  getting  votes  for  Woodrow 
Wilson. 

He  discovered  that  there  was  very  little 
of  the  social  diseases  in  the  Navy,  because 
a  former  Assistant-Secretary  of  the  Navy 
had  seen  to  it  that  the  Medical  Board 


124  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

had  given  the  rank  and  file  of  the  Navy 
instructions  in  hygiene ;  and,  whenever  the 
sailors  went  ashore,  a  little  cheap  package 
of  *^ Safety-aid"  was  handed  to  each.  It 
so  shocked  the  Honorable  Daniels  and 
President  Wilson  that  they  decided  to  stop 
all  lectures  on  hygiene  and  the  giving  of 
*^ Safety-aid,''  with  the  result  that  today  a 
large  percentage  of  the  rank  and  file  of 
our  Navy  men  are  diseased  and,  as  they 
sail  from  port  to  port,  they  are  spreading 
the  seeds  of  suffering  and  decay.  Could 
anything  be  more  shortsighted?  One  has 
to  learn  to  handle  each  situation. as  one 
finds  it. 

With  narrow-minded  landsmen  of  such 
caliber  in  charge  of  our  Government,  how 
can  we  expect  an  improvement  in  our 
Navy  affairs  or  in  its  general  morale? 
And  is  it  any  wonder  that  the  physical  and 
mental  powers  of  our  citizens  are  now  on 
the  wane? 

It  is  eminently  proper  our  spotless 
President  and  his  Secretary  of  the  Navy 
should  set  the  sailors  of  our  nation  ex- 
amples by  their  own  moral  private  lives; 


BRANDEIS,  HOUSE  AND  UNTERMYER     125 

but,  any  man  experienced  in  naval  or  army 
affairs  would  know  that  this  is  not  the 
proper  way  to  cure  this  terrible  evil.  Why 
were  not  Col.  House  or  the  President's 
personal  attorney,  The  Hon.  Mr.  Unter- 
myer,  or  Justice  Brandeis,  or  one  of  the 
heads  of  the  Department  of  Animal  Indus- 
try, called  on  to  give  expert  advice  if  the 
gentleman  could  not  agree  with  the  medical 
head  of  our  Government? 

The  United  States  Government  should 
now  take  upon  itself  to  wipe  out  the  social 
diseases  as  it  is  bound  to  do  some  day — just 
as  the  Kaiser  did  in  Germany,  where  they 
now  claim  they  have  the  super-man — and, 
if  some  day,  why  not  today?  When  this  will 
have  been  accomplished  the  ills  of  man  will 
be  greatly  diminished  and  there  will  not  be 
the  need  of  60%  of  the  doctors  and  surgeons 
we  have  today.  America  as  a  nation  will  be 
healthier,  happier  and  longer  lived  and  we 
will  be  capable  of  greater  achievements. 
All  this  can  be  done  if  only  the  public  are 
aroused  to  its  crying  need.  To  a  lack  of 
these  hygienic  laws,  the  great  Roman  Em- 
pire owes  her  downfall.    Go  to  any  of  our 


126  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

New  York  Hospitals  and  find  tlie  percent- 
age of  cases  due  directly  or  indirectly  to 
social  diseases  and  you  will  be  astonished. 

HEREDITARY  INSANITY  FROM 

DISEASE. 

Society  owes  it  to  itself  to  segregate  or 
sterilize  the  unfit,  so  they  cannot  produce 
their  defective  kind,  who  must  have  insti- 
tutional care  and  be  a  burden  to  the  state. 

From  an  insanity  expert,  for  many  years 
head  of  his  state's  insane  asylum,  to  whom 
I  submitted  this  manuscript,  I  have  this 
message : 

*^Many  times,  I  have  found  patients 
whose  symptoms  indicated  syphilitic  insan- 
ity, but  whose  parents,  apparently,  were 
healthy.  In  such  instances  I  invariably 
have  found  something  like  the  following  to 
be  the  case : 

**  *A.,'  once  syphilized,  marries  a  healthy 
energetic  woman.  Their  son,  *C.,'  is  ap- 
parently healthy. 

**  *B.,'  perfectly  healthy,  marries  a 
healthy,  energetic  woman.  Their  daughter, 
*D.,'  is  apparently  healthy. 


DEMAND    ANCESTRAL    HISTORY  127 


'*  ^C  and  ^D.'  marry  and  the  result  is 
*K.,'  my  patienf 

In  some  eases  I  have  traced  the  syphil- 
ized  ancestor  to  even  a  remoter  ancestor. 
The  most  prominent  infant  doctors  of  to- 
day in  New  York  City  will  not  treat  an  ail- 
ing child  until  they  know  the  ancestral  his- 
tory of  both  parents ;  and  other  doctors  who 
make  a  specialty  of  infants  are  doing  the 
same. 

It  is  costing  too  much  to  support  the  poor- 
houses,  feeble-minded  homes,  institutions 
for  the  blind  and  deaf,  asylums,  houses  of 
correction,  reform  schools,  jails  and  peni- 
tentiaries. 

I  was  not  for  two  years  president  of  two 
of  our  largest  cemeteries  in  New  York  City 
without  getting  some  insight  into  the  life 
in  this  great  city. 

Dr.  Charles  A,  L.  Eeed,  the  well-known 
surgeon  and  scientist  of  Cincinnati,  a  man 
of  about  fifty-five,  writes  that  he  has  had 
about  5,000  women  patients  who  have  been 
sterilized  by  gonorrhoea,  nearly  2,000  of 
whom  submitted  to  dangerous  and  muti- 
lating operations  to  save  their  lives ;  and  he 


128  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

has  had  hundreds  of  men  patients  that  have 
been  sterilized  by  gonorrhoea. 

There  are  150,000  members  of  the  medi- 
cal profession  in  the  United  States  and 
they  have  to  attend  to  the  ills  of  100,000,000 
people.  Syphilis,  he  states,  is  the  great 
hereditary  disease  of  the  American  race 
and  it  is  ever  far-reaching  in  its  degener- 
ating influence  on  humanity. 

A  bright  attractive  young  woman  re- 
cently died  of  syphilitic  cancer  at  the  age  of 
twenty-three.  She  had  lived  in  a  city  a  few 
hundred  miles  from  New  York,  and  occa- 
sionally came  to  New  York  to  visit.  In  her 
native  city  she  held  a  moderately  good  so- 
cial position.  She  had  married  at  16,  and 
soon  thereafter  was  divorced.  She  had 
been  syphilized  six  years  when  she  died. 
With  a  pretty  face  and  attractive  form,  she 
soon  had  some  of  the  finest  fellows  of  the 
best  families  in  New  York  at  her  court,  six 
of  whom  she  diseased — and  one  of  them 
told  me  there  were  twenty  more. 

What  havoc  she  wrought  in  other  cities, 
God  only  knows;  and,  when  called  to  ac- 
count for  what  she  had  done,  she  simply 


SPREADING  SOCIAL  DISEASES  129 

said:  ^*A  mAn  diseased  me,  and  I  made  up 
my  mind  to  disease  every  man  I  could. ' ' 

Dr.  **T.,''  whom  I  knew  well,  was  an  as- 
sistant to  a  doctor  in  a  small  town  of  four 
thousand  population,  within  a  hundred 
miles  of  Chicago.  He  told  me  that  their  of- 
fice attended  to  men  only,  and  they  special- 
ized in  social  diseases ;  that  once  an  attrac- 
tive young  woman  from  Chicago  came  to 
this  town  and,  within  six  months  she  had 
caused  to  be  brought  to  their  office,  alone, 
four  hundred  men,  whom  she  had  directly 
or  indirectly  syphilized.  What  happened 
to  the  wives  of  these  men — and  to  their 
children  who  afterwards  were  born?  And 
finally,  when  they  discovered  the  cause  they 
went  out  and  brought  the  woman  to  their 
office  and  asked  her  what  she  meant. 

*^Well,^*  she  said,  '*I  was  driven  out  of 
Chicago,  and  what  else  could  I  do?  I  had 
to  live.'* 

As  I  am  sending  this  manuscript  to  my 
printer,  my  'phone  rings  and  I  am  called 
to  a  physician's  office,  where  stands  a 
young  woman,  of  say  22  years,  as  refined 
and  attractive  in  manner  and  dress  and  as 


ISO  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

handsome  and  beautifnlly  formed  as  one 
would  see  in  a  month.  Not  a  scratch  nor 
a  blemish  is  on  her  skin, — but  she  is  thor- 
oughly syphilized.  The  doctor  said  to  her, 
^^I  can  cure  you,  but  you  must  go  at  once 
to  this  address — stay  there  and  submit  to 
treatment."  Her  reply  was:  ^'It  is  quite 
impossible,  as  it  would  interfere  with  my 
business."  Her  business  was  to  lunch  and 
dine  at  the  most  exclusive  restaurants  in 
New  York  and  Boston  and  there  secure 
her  victims,  especially  among  the  rich  of 
the  college  students.  I  said  to  her:  *^ Just 
think  of  the  damage  you  are  doing!  Are 
you  not  afraid  of  being  shot?"  Her  reply 
was:  ^* There  are  plenty  others  doing  the 
same. ' ' 

If  parents  or  teachers  in  our  public 
schools  have  neglected  to  thoroughly  ad- 
vise their  sons  or  their  pupils  of  such 
dangers,  and  if  fathers  are  too  careless  or 
too  busy  making  money,  will  not  the  moth- 
ers of  our  boys  write  to  their  Congressmen 
and  their  State  Eepresentatives  to  insist 
on  the  passage  of  National  and  State  Laws 
that  will  compel  the  weekly  examination 


MOTHERS  SAVE  YOUNG  DAUGHTERS  131 

of  prostitutes,  and  the  issuing  of  health 
certificates,  under  the  severest  penalties, 
and  thus  remove  the  danger  to  themselves 
and  to  the  unborn?  This  is  the  only  way 
to  prevent  the  decay  of  our  Nation;  and 
anyone  with  an  atom  of  common  sense 
must  know  it.  Will  not  the  mothers  of 
daughters,  who  are  to  marry  our  young 
men,  do  the  same  and  save  their  daughters 
from  a  fate  that  as  surely  as  death  awaits 
them? 

Such  cases  should  be  locked  up  and 
treated  by  the  state  until  they  are  well  and 
harmless.  It  should  be  a  most  serious  crim- 
inal offense  for  such  a  leper  to  have  con- 
nection with  an  innocent  person. 

Prompt  and  effective  measures  are  now 
being  taken  by  communities  and  the  states 
to  combat  epidemics  of  Infantile  Paralysis, 
Measles,  Scarlet  Fever,  Typhoid,  Cholera, 
Small  Pox  and  other  diseases ;  but  Syphilis, 
the  ever-present,  ever-spreading  scourge 
of  our  civilization,  which  is  doing  a  dam- 
age a  thousand-fold  more  than  these  epi- 
demic diseases,  is  spoken  of  only  in  whis- 
pers.    And  why?     It  is  because  it  is  so 


132  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

widely  spread  among  onr  best  families,  and 
is  called  a  social  evil,  as  well  as  a  disease. 
Our  smug-faced  neighbors,  with  cant  and 
hypocrisy,  deny  the  presence  of  Syphilis 
in  any  of  its  many  varied  forms,  for  the 
reason  that  the  disease  may  affect  the  indi- 
vidual victim,  even  to  the  death,  but  the 
taint  once  infused  into  the  family  blood, 
takes  in  every  root  and  branch.  If  a  single 
member,  diseased  and  syphilized,  drops 
from  the  family  tree  it  is  one  thing,  but  if 
the  root  and  the  trunk  bear  even  the 
suspicion  of  decay  it  is  quite  another. 
Hence  come  dissemination  and  concealment. 
Syphilis  can  be  cured,  if  prompt  scientific 
skill  is  employed.  Here  patience  becomes  a 
virtue. 

NEEDED  LAWS. 

Checks  to  bar  syphilitics  and  measures 
to  control  the  spread  of  Syphilis  have  gen- 
erally been  advocated  by  men.  They  speak 
of  women,  not  men,  as  the  spreaders  of  the 
disease  and  always  advocate  the  isolation 
and  care  of  women.  This  is  neither  good 
sense  nor  good  judgment.  I  say,  save  the 
imborn  generations  and  lock  up  syphilitics. 


SOME  NEEDED  LAWS  133 

males  and  females  alike,  until  cnred  or  until 
they  cease  to  be  a  menace  to  society. 

If  our  Congressmen  are  patriotic  and 
want  to  save  our  nation  from  decay,  let 
them  at  once  pass  such  laws.  Congress  has 
passed  Pure  Food  Acts  and  Pure  Seed 
Laws  and  laws  forbidding  the  landing  on 
our  shores  of  any  person  with  weak  eyes. 
What  are  weak  eyes  compared  with  a  dis- 
eased body  that  putrefies  everything  it 
touches,  and  breeds  misery?  Weak  eyes  can 
be  easily  cured,  but  it  takes  generations  to 
breed  out  hereditary  ills. 

In  most  of  the  large  cities,  laws  are  being 
passed  that  every  man  or  woman  who 
handles  breadstuifs  must  be  weekly  exam- 
ined to  see  that  he  or  she  has  no  venereal 
disease.  To  prevent  the  spread  of  such  dis- 
eases, how  much  more  important  it  is  to 
pass  a  law  that  every  doctor  must  make  a 
public  record  of  every  case  of  venereal  dis- 
ease, so  each  person  so  affected  may  have 
an  official  examination  and  certificate,  if 
cured,  before  he  or  she  is  allowed  to  touch 
or  come  in  contact  with  other  people. 


134  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

THINGS  TO  AVOID. 

Let  young  ladies,  who  are  looking 
around  to  get  married,  use  their  brains,  the 
one  thing  the  Almighty  has  given  humans 
that  other  animals  do  not  possess.  Let 
them  be  educated  to  allow  their  hearts  to 
be  guided  by  their  heads  in  the  choice  of 
a  life-partner  and  if  they  come  across  a 
young  man  with  rheumatism  or  locomotor 
ataxia,  or  bald  spots  on  his  head,  or  white 
patches  in  his  hair  or  scarlet  spots  on  his 
body  or  who  has  no  business,  and  says  his 
father  has  advised  him  to  keep  in  the  open 
air,  it  is  best  to  reject  him,  for  you  can 
put  it  down  pretty  safely  that  in  nine  cases 
out  of  ten  there  is  a  cause.  Notice  how 
many  well  educated  young  men  from  the 
middle  classes  have  become  chauffeurs. 

When  I  see  a  pure  and  healthy  well  bred 
girl  marry  a  syphilitic  man ;  when  I  watch 
her  agony  as  she  consigns  to  the  grave  her 
diseased  first-born;  and  when  I  see  in  the 
face  of  her  only  child,  the  lines  of  the 
father's  disease,  what  shall  I  do?  Shall  I 
tell  her  that,  one  day  when  studying  to  find 
out  why  our  oldest  and  best  families  had 


MILLIONS  FOR  HOGS  13D 

died  out,  I  secured  a  book  of  the  medical 
histories  and  bill  books  of  the  late  Dr.  **T." 
and  there  found  the  history  of  this  child  ^s 
father  some  thirty  years  before;  and  that 
is  why  he  never  went  into  business  ?  Shall  I 
tell  her  to  take  her  daughter  to  the  best  spe- 
cialists in  syphilis,  so  that  with  two  years 
careful  treatment  she  will  be  well  and 
cured;  or,  shall  I  let  her  remain  in  igno^^ 
ance  and  allow  her  remaining  child  to  die? 

THE  IMPORTANCE  OF  THE  HEALTH 
OF  THE  AMERICAN  HOG. 

We  have  machinery  instituted  by  laws  To 
touch  every  activity  of  our  industries.  Did 
I  live  in  Wichita,  Kansas,  and  telegraph  the 
United  States  Department  of  Health  that 
my  children  were  threatened  by  an  epidemic 
of  scarlet  fever  that  was  killing  my  neigh- 
bors' children  by  the  hundred,  they  would 
refer  me  to  my  local  or  State  health  officers. 
But,  should  I  telegraph  the  Department 
that  my  hogs  were  threatened  by  a  new  epi- 
demic of  cholera  or  foot  and  mouth  disease, 
they  would  at  once  telegraph  back  that  they 
were  sending  a  carload  of  experts  to  stamp 


136  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

out  the  danger.  Our  Government  spends 
annually  at  least  $3,500,000  to  protect  the 
hog  from  disease.  Millions  to  save  the  hog ; 
nothing  to  save  the  child ! 

Bad  as  the  above  illustration  may  seem, 
it  is  not  the  worst  result  from  the  **  black 
plague. '^  There  is  thrown  into  the  system 
of  a  syphilitic  man  a  toxin  or  poison  from 
the  small  protozoa,  which  causes  the  dis- 
ease. This  little  animal  organism  feeds  on, 
breeds,  and  secretes  into  the  circulatory 
blood  system  of  its  victim.  The  toxic  effect 
is  caused  from  such  excreta,  and  it  pene- 
trates every  organ  bathed  and  nourished  by 
the  blood.  The  germ  plasm  receives  the 
poison  from  the  blood;  the  germ  cells  re- 
ceive the  poison  from  the  plasm.  The 
poison  does  not  always  destroy  the  repro- 
ductive cells.  In  some  cases,  the  effect  upon 
them  is  to  lessen  their  vitality  so  that  the 
development  of  the  embryo  in  the  mother's 
womb  is  abnormal.  The  abnormality  may 
be  some  physical  deformity  or  weakness,  or 
some  erratic  mental  or  nervous  trouble. 
There  is  no  way  by  which  one  can  predict 
what  injury,  if  any,  will  come  to  the  child 
from  a  syphilitic  father  or  mother. 


ALCOHOL   AMERICA'S  CUBSE  137 

ALCOHOL   AMERICA'S   CURSE;   ITS 
EFFECTS  ON  THE  UNBORN. 

Alcohol  so  injures  and  weakens  the 
reproductive  glands  that  defective  cells 
are  formed.  The  germ  cells  injured  by 
alcohol  do  not  develoj)  into  normal  beings ; 
they  are  found  defective  and  deformed  in 
animals  and  in  humans.  There  are  many 
evils  resulting  from  the  excessive  use  of 
alcohol.  It  may,  and  often  does,  produce 
sterility.  The  injury  may  take  on  the  form 
of  a  body  weakness,  or  the  poison  may 
manifest  itself  in  a  nervous  disorder,  or  it 
may  appear  in  the  offspring,  producing 
various  forms  of  defectives.  Anyone,  who 
has  studied  eugenics,  can  discover  if  a  child 
comes  from  a  parent  or  parents  addicted 
to  drink,  just  as  well  as  from  parents  that 
have  syphilis. 

Alcohol  stands  today  in  America  as  the 
greatest  barrier  to  man's  continued  evolu- 
tion. Like  the  scorpion  which  devours 
the  mother  that  gives  him  birth,  so  alcohol 
smothers  the  germs  from  which  it  springs, 
and  then  destroys  the  life  and  damns  the 
soul  of  the  man  it  cheers.     Could  men  look 


138  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

into  the  subtle  poison  of  the  sparkling 
glass,  they  would  see  the  Scylla  and 
Charybdis  that  beckons  and  lures  them  on 
to  their  own  destruction  and  weakens  and 
ruins  their  own  lives  and  those  of  their 
offspring  and  their  posterity,  as  bad  tend- 
encies multiply  as  thev  breed  on  in  a 
greater  proportion  than  good  tendencies. 
Its  poison  not  only  can  stop  evolution, 
but  it  can  also  destroy  advancement  al- 
ready made.  It  is  possible  for  young  men 
to  keep  their  bodies  so  soaked  in  alcohol 
that  their  children  and  grand-children  will 
be  distinctly  inferior  to  themselves  in 
brain  force.  Physical  weakness  is  an- 
other curse  which  children  may  receive 
at  the  hands  of  alcoholic  fathers.  Children 
from  such  parentage  are  generally  of 
weak  constitutions,  have  depraved  taste, 
and  die  early.  Many  inherit  the  liquor 
habit.  Where  normals  pay  100%  Life  In- 
surance premiums,  those  addicted  to  alcohol 
pay  174%. 

Our  Government  reports  show  that  each 
year  we  spend  $3,200,000,000  for  alcoholic 
drinks  and  tobacco  to  undermine  our  health 


EFFECTS   OF  ALCOHOL   ON   PIGS  139 

and  our  constitutions  and  to  ruin  the  vital- 
ity and  potency  of  our  men  and  Tv^omen ;  and 
that  we  give  our  children  $452,000,000  to 
spend  on  candy  and  soft-drinks  to  sour 
their  stomachs,  retard  their  growth,  and 
make  them  unfit;  and  when  free  scientific 
advice  is  offered  that  will  benefit  both 
themselves  and  their  offspring  they  turn  a 
deaf  ear. 

Within  twenty  years,  the  people  of  this 
country  will  have  had  their  eyes  opened  and 
most  stringent  laws  will  be  passed  by  Con- 
gress as  to  health  certificates  and  restrict- 
ing the  manufacture  and  sale  of  all  alco- 
holic beverages.  The  Kaiser,  the  Czar  and 
now  the  King  of  Italy  in  the  present 
European  war,  realize  that  to  have  effec- 
tive armies,  the  drinking  of  alcoholic  bev- 
erages must  be  stopped. 

Dr.  C.  R.  Stockard,  in  the  November, 
1913,  '^ American  Naturalist,"  gives  an 
account  of  experiments  of  an  extensive 
nature  with  guinea  pigs.  These  animals 
were  kept  in  an  intoxicated  condition  by 
forcing  them  to  inhale  the  fumes  of  alco- 
col.       Where    controlled    animals,    under 


140  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

usual  conditions,  would  produce  100  nor- 
mal offspring,  the  alcoholic  ones  produced 
only  about  30.  The  next  generation,  or 
the  grand-children  of  intoxicated  pigs,  pro- 
duced the  same  number  of  defective  young, 
running  as  high  as  70%  defective.  It 
must  be  understood  that  the  parents  of 
the  defective  grand-children  had  not  be- 
come addicted  to  intoxication.  No,  they 
inherited  from  alcohoUc  parents  the  poison, 
which  rendered  70%  of  their  young  worth- 
less. I  recently  visited  the  experimental 
station  and  saw  for  myself  these  effects; 
also  the  cyclops  guinea  pig  and  a  speci- 
men of  human  cyclop  from  alcoholic  ances- 
tors. The  Prohibition  Party  once  despised 
will  some  day  prevail — and  that  day  is 
not  far  off — just  as  eugenics  is  bound  soon 
to  do,  when  the  public  is  aroused  to  the 
danger  that  confronts  them  and  their  chil- 
dren by  not  following  the  Laws  of  Nature 
and  Hygiene.  In  1860  the  average  per 
capita  consumption  of  alcohol  was  6.4  gal- 
lons. Today  it  is  19.8  gallons  per  capita. 
We  are  fast  becoming  a  nation  of  drunks, 
The  stupendous  amount  of  liquor  con- 


DISTILLERY  MASH  AND  CATTLE  141 

sumed  in  America  is  the  greatest  possible 
menace  to  the  generations  to  come.  Every 
drink  taken  by  young  people  is  a  menace 
to  the  nation.  Children  conceived  of  par- 
ents, who,  at  the  moment  of  conception, 
are  under  the  etfect  of  liquor,  often  are 
stupid  or  brainless  and  inherit  the  taste 
for  liquor. 

If  there  were  an  organization  of  young 
married  people  pledged  to  destroy  half 
their  children,  the  world  would  be  shocked. 
All  legal  machinery  available  would  be 
called  upon  to  prevent  it.  Yet,  it  would 
be  less  cruel  to  dispose  of  children  at  birth 
than  to  allow  the  indiscriminate  use  of 
liquor  by  men  and  women  who  are  to  be- 
come parents.  The  time  ought  to  be  at 
hand  when  the  consumer  of  alcohol  should 
be  quarantined,  as  a  smallpox  victim  is 
segregated.  Sm^allpox  cannot  produce  im- 
beciles, neuropathic,  deformed  children; 
but  alcohol  can  and  will. 

DISTILLERY    MASH    AND    CATTLE. 

Yesterday,  I  visited  one  of  the  largest 
distilleries,  where  famous  whiskey  is  made. 


142  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

I  saw  a  sign  at  a  side  gate, — ''No  Admis- 
sion'' so  I  drove  in  and  went  back  of  the 
distillery,  and  there,  in  a  barren  filthy  lot, 
with  a  big  high  fence  around  it,  were  seven 
hundred  steers,  receiving  their  final  fatten- 
ing from  the  mash  of  the  distillery  before 
being  slaughtered. 

The  cattlemen  raise  the  cattle  and  give 
them  a  healthy  constitution ;  then  send  them 
to  the  distillery  for  a  few  weeks '  fattening. 
The  cattlemen  and  the  distillery  divide  be- 
tween them  the  value  of  the  extra  amount 
of  weight  which  the  cattle  take  on  from  the 
distillery  refuse.  An  attendant  iells  me 
that  some  steers  die  refusing  to  eat  the 
mash,  but  when  once  they  get  the  taste,  they 
are  ravenous  and  crazy  for  it. 

About  98%  of  these  steers  were  lying 
around  dosing,  in  a  drunken  stupor.  2% 
were  staggering  around  in  filth.  Anyone 
who  saw  them  in  their  pitiable  condition 
would  be  loath  to  eat  their  flesh. 

I  learn  that  50%  of  all  the  Kentucky 
high-grade  cattle  that  come  to  our  city  and 
export  markets,  go  through  the  distillery 
fattening  process. 


ALCOHOL'S   EFFECT   ON   HEREDITY       143 

At  certain  hours  during  the  day,  big 
wooden  troughs  are  filled  with  this  hot 
mash,  which  contains  a  certain  amount  of 
alcohol ;  and  which  the  cattle  soon  grow  to 
love. 

Formerly,  this  refuse  was  run  into  the 
streams,  but  it  killed  the  fish. 

The  most  valuable  possession  of  any 
family  is  its  inheritance  of  health  and 
strength,  brain,  physical  and  moral  force. 
Alcohol  can,  in  one  generation,  disrupt  and 
destroy  the  precious  heritage  of  many  ages. 
It  may  turn  back  the  beneficial  effect  of 
generations  of  good  heredity  and  give  to 
the  world,  in  the  guise  of  a  man,  a  thing 
neither  man  nor  beast,  a  thing  without  in- 
tellect, without  moral  fiber,  and  without 
will. 

There  was  a  day,  before  whiskey  and 
tobacco  became  its  staple  products, 
when  Kentucky  supplied  more  great  men 
for  its  numbers  than  any  other  state.  The 
people  of  Kentucky  realized  what  was 
causing  its  degeneracy  and  at  the  last  local 
option  election  100  out  of  120  counties  went 
dry,  and  as  soon  as  every  county  goes  dry. 


144  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

it  will  be  found  that  Kentucky  once  more  is 
on  the  road  to  prominence,  as  of  old. 

If  the  race  is  to  be  improved  by  heredity, 
and  this  is  the  only  way  it  can  be  improved, 
and  by  adding  pure  blood  to  pure  blood, 
each  addition  of  value  must  be  protected 
against  the  ravages  of  intoxication  and  the 
social  diseases.  This  generation  is  the  re- 
cipient of  all  the  good  of  the  countless  gen- 
erations gone  before.  Life  actually  is  per- 
petuated and  passes  without  a  break  from 
one  generation  to  another,  except  as  the 
blood  of  intermediate  generations  becomes 
contaminated.  No  one  has  better  ocular 
proof  of  this  than  a  horse  breeder,  for  he 
sees  the  results  in  three  years.  Our  most 
sacred  duty  is  to  preserve  it  unsullied  and 
hand  it  on.  Why  cannot  our  young  men  see 
that  theft,  falsehood  and  murder  are  mild 
faults  compared  to  the  crime  of  debasing 
and  brutalizing  the  bit  of  immortality 
of  which  he  is  the  guardian?  Shall  I 
call  this  priceless  inheritance  a  **bit  of  im- 
mortality?''  It  is  that,  and  so  much  more 
that  words  fail  to  express  its  worth.  To 
produce   my    share    of   immortality,    two 


MOTHERLY  INSTINCTS  145 

streams  met  and  mingled.  Stretching  back- 
ward from  me  in  two  everwidening  chan- 
nels is  the  precious  heritage  all  concentrat- 
ed in  me.  By  this  means,  I  am  a  part  of  the 
thousands  of  generations  that  have  gone 
before.  Their  achievements,  their  self- 
sacrifices,  the  selective  agencies  of  society 
and  nature,  which  lifted  them  to  positions 
of  influence  and  worth,  are  mine  by  heri- 
tage. I  am  not  only  a  product  of  the  count- 
less multitude  which  has  gone  before,  but 
I  am  the  guardian  of  a  share  of  immortal 
plasm,  a  plasm  ladened  and  vitalized  by  the 
evolution  of  my  race.  This  plasm  endows 
me  with  a  creative  power  which  even  the 
gods  do  not  possess.  This  inestimable  pow- 
er is  mine  because  of  the  hereditary  strains 
which  created  me.  It  is  my  duty  to  keep  it 
untarnished,  and  to  pass  it  along  to  com- 
ing generations,  improved  and  benefited  by 
each  generation. 

MOTHERLY  INSTINCTS. 

Especially  among  the  literary,  we  find 
refined  and  sensitive  women  to  whom  sex- 
ual  intercourse   is   repugnant,   but,   deep 


146  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

down  in  their  hearts,  is  a  longing  to  be  a 
mother. 

To  such  persons  I  say  that  over  thirty 
per  cent,  of  all  my  colts  at  the  Patchen 
Wilkes  Stock  Farm  are  from  impregnation 
and  such  colts  are  among  the  best.  All 
that  the  sensitive  woman  abhors  is  ab- 
solutely unnecessary,  for  any  woman  can 
fertilize  herself.  Life  germs  will  live  four 
hours,  if  kept  warm ;  sun  light  has  no  effect 
as  popularly  supposed.  I  know  this;  and 
have  at  my  farm  made  exhaustive  experi- 
ments which  a  well  known  scientist  will 
soon  tell  the  world  in  print. 

Follow  me  for  a  moment:  A  stallion 
serves  the  mare  in  the  usual  way,  or  the 
stalJion  is  provided  with  a  rubber  ^^  breed- 
ing bag''  that  catches  the  life  germs,  or 
these  germs  are  stripped  from  the  stallion 
or  taken  from  a  mare  that  has  been  served 
by  a  platinum  or  nickel  impregnator  prop- 
erly heated.  Having  collected  the  germs, 
they  are  placed  in  the  wombs  of  the  mares 
to  be  fertilized.  A  drop  is  all  that  is 
needed.  Or,  these  life  germs  are  put  into 
little  sterilized  gelatine  capsules,  carried 


ANIMAL  AND  HUMAN  IMPREGNATION    147 

for  miles  in  heated  sterilized  cotton  and  in- 
serted in  the  mouth  of  the  womb — and 
nature  does  the  rest. 

Years  ago,  when  I  first  proved  by  the  sud- 
den advent  of  a  large  number  of  colts  at 
my  farm  from  one  stallion  that  I  had  put 
impregnation  on  a  commercial  basis  and 
was  saving  the  strength  and  potency  of  my 
good  stallion,  I  was  called  down  from  New 
York   to   Lexington   by   the   editor   of   a 
stock  journal,  who  threatened  to  expose  me 
to  the  world  and  ruin  my  business,  and 
there  informed   that  he   was   backed   by 
eight    Kentucky   horse   breeders.      I    left 
New  York  at  once  with  my  attorney  to 
meet  the  charges,  which,  when  I  arrived, 
were  dropped.    Today,  every  one  of  these 
eight  Kentucky  horse  breeders  is  using  im- 
pregnators.    One  can  thus  extend  the  use- 
fulness of  a  stallion  of  ^* Combination  I'^ 
whose  semen  has  been  tested  microscop- 
ically and  whose  colts  prove  him  to  be  a 
sire  of  intelligence,  speed,  health  and  early 
maturity.      Today   this    system   is    being 
practiced  among  humans. 

The  healthiest  and  grandest  specimens  of 


148  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

young  men  of  all  nations  have  been  killed 
or  maimed  in  the  present  European  war, 
and  only  the  defectives  and  weaklings  are 
left  from  whom  to  breed.  At  least, 
Germany  has  her  scientists  right  here  to- 
day, studying  animal  and  human  impreg- 
nation. She  is  a  nation  of  scientists,  and 
she  knows  they  have  to  impregnate,  or, 
they,  as  a  nation,  are  lost.  Or  polygamy 
must  be  legalized  as  it  was  once  after 
the  30  years  war,  for  when  the  pres- 
ent European  war  is  over,  there  will 
be  12,000,000  more  young  marriageable 
women  than  men. 

Thus  spoke  the  German  doctor: 
**The  farmer  only  plants  his  best  seed. 
The  horse-breeder  only  breeds  his  mares 
to  his  best  stallions.  The  dairyman  only 
breeds  his  milk  cows  to  the  best  bull. 
Then  why  should  humans  be  compelled  to 
have  children  by  dwarfs  and  defectives — 
the  lame  and  the  halt?  In  Germany,  after 
the  war,  we  propose  to  breed  from  only 
the  besf 

There  is  absolutely  no  difference  between 
children  and  colts  produced  this  way  and 


BREEDING  WORTH-WHILE  OFFSPRING    149 

those  produced  the  usual  way.  We  have 
proved  here  that  what  is  true  of  the  horse 
is  equally  true  of  the  human. 

When  the  women  of  this  country  become 
educated  in  eugenics,  they  will  not  risk 
their  lives  nor  their  health  to  marry  or  have 
children  by  an  ill-bred,  diseased,  or  booze- 
loving  husband.  They  also  will  realize  the 
crime  they  will  be  committing  to  the  un- 
born. They  will  be  warned  beforehand 
of  the  punishment  they  and  their  children 
will  receive,  if  they  take  such  a  foolish 
step. 

Then,  what  an  incentive  it  will  be  for 
our  young  men  and  women  to  endeavor  to 
insure  in  every  way  to  their  children  well- 
balanced  ancestral  pedigrees,  free  from 
hereditary  ills  and  bad  inclinations, — and 
when  the  young  are  educated,  the  $3,200,- 
000,000  now  yearly  spent  in  the  United 
States  on  alcohol  and  tobacco,  and  the  ad- 
ditional sums  yearly  spent  on  carousing, 
will  all  be  spent  on  breeding  offspring — 
worth-while. 

The  day  will  not  be  far  off  when  the 
boy  of  twelve  years  of  age  will  have  the 


150  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

maturity,  the  mental  and  physical  devel- 
opment of  the  young  man  of  twenty. 

We  have  shown  what  a  saving  this  early 
development  has  been  to  the  breeders  of 
chickens,  hogs,  horses  and  cattle,  to  the 
dairymen  and  poultrymen.  The  same  sav- 
ing will  be  to  the  parents  and  to  the  state, 
for,  with  humans,  you  have  a  mind  to  work 
with  and  assist  you,  so  that  the  development 
will  be  the  more  grand  in  every  respect. 

Cannot  the  world  see  this  and  see  it  now  ? 

EELATIVE  INFLUENCE  OF  THE 

SEXES. 

I  like  to  think  of  sexual  reproduction  as  it 
might  be  expressed  figuratively.  The  fe- 
male may  be  said  to  represent  Mother 
Earth.  To  feed  the  world,  the  Earth  re- 
quires unlimited  care.  Only  after  exten- 
sive preparation  is  it  ready  to  receive  the 
husbandman's  seed  and  to  transform  it  into 
a  harvest  of  a  hundred  fold.  The  same 
cultivation  to  prepare  the  field  for  the  seed 
is  necessary  to  precede  motherhood.  Soil, 
at  its  best,  gives  the  maximum  return.  Pros- 
pective motherhood  should  be  at  its  best 


ABUSED  EARTH  YIELDS  POOR  CROPS  151 

before  the  seed  of  an  immortal  being  is  in- 
trusted to  it  for  development.  Why  should 
not  women  look  forward  to  this  great  cre- 
ative experience  and  prepare  themselves 
for  it, — abstain,  abstain,  and  live  a  normal 
life?  Eemember  how  the  Spartan  mother 
gloried  in  the  health,  intellect  and  strength 
of  her  sons!  Should  not  man  have  pride 
in  himself,  pride  in  his  children,  and  be 
willing  for  their  sake  to  abstain,  himself, 
from  excesses?  ** Whatever  seed  ye  sow, 
so  shall  ye  reap.'' 

We  declare  that  the  social  diseases,  dissi- 
pation and  over-indulgence,  unfit  men  for 
fatherhood.  I  inquire  why  the  highballs, 
drinks  of  alcoholic  origin,  cigarettes  and 
kindred  indulgences,  do  not,  equally,  unfit 
women  for  the  office  of  motherhood?  The 
abused  earth  yields  an  inferior  crop,  no 
matter  how  good  the  seed,  and  you  see  it  in 
the  face  and  form  of  the  child.  Mothers, 
stop  and  think !  Will  you  knowingly  injure 
your  own  offspring? 

Drinking,  cigarette  smoking  and  fast  liv- 
ing are  depriving  children  of  their  natural 
birthright.    If  men  and  women  will  drink, 


152  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

they  should  postpone  such  indulgence  until 
after  the  reproductive  period  has  passed. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  syphilitic  should  be 
isolated  and  ostracized  as  unfit,  not  only  for 
parentage,  but  as  a  menace  to  upright  men 
and  women.  No  man,  who  has  honest  in- 
tentions toward  the  woman  he  desires  to 
marry,  should  hesitate  to  instantly  show  his 
intended,  or  her  advisor,  his  ancestral  pedi- 
gree, and  submit  himself  to  a  physical  ex- 
amination. Otherwise,  he  is  undesirable  and 
has  something  to  hide. 

LAWS  OF  HEEEDITY  THE  SAME  JN 
MAN,  PLANT  OK  BEAST. 

The  immutable  law  of  heredity  is  not 
comprehended  when  men  are  under  consid- 
eration, ^rhen  I  say  I  only  can  produce 
worthy  horses,  as  I  marshal  the  forces  of 
heredity  in  the  right  way,  I  am  believed. 
Wlien  the  dog  fancier  declares  that  his  blue- 
ribbon  dogs  are  entirely  dne  to  the  right 
kind  of  breeding,  no  one  doubts  him.  The 
dairyman  would  be  considered  irrespons- 
ible, did  he  claim  that  record  butter  cows 


l^HE  INJUSTICE  OF  LAW  153 

could  be  made  by  stable,  feed  and  care, 
regardless  of  their  ancestry. 

While  this  is  true,  so  far  as  domestic 
animals  are  concerned,  intelligent  men  re- 
fuse to  believe  that  their  own  children  are 
subject  to  the  same  force  of  heredity.  Let 
me  here  emphasize  the  fact  that  the  laws 
of  heredity  apply  to  man  with  as  much 
accuracy  as  they  do  to  plant  or  beast  and 
every  scientist  acknowledges  such  to  be  the 
case.  As  man  is  infinitely  more  complex 
than  are  animals,  so  the  force  of  heredity 
will  manifest  itself  in  more  varied  ways.  It 
must  be  kept  in  mind  that  talents  and  ten- 
dencies are  all  due  to  the  power  of  heredity. 
An  interesting  fact  is  that  once  a  trait  gets 
into  a  family  strain,  it  may  persist  for  gen- 
erations. This  is  altogether  desirable 
should  that  trait  be  some  valuable  talent. 
Not  always  is  it  valuable,  when  marriage 
takes  place  between  families  having  the 
same  bad  trait,  for  it  establishes  it  to  the 
detriment  of  their  posterity.  It  doubles  up 
the  tendency  and  makes  it  more  difficult  to 
eradicate.  Go  for  a  few  mornings  to  the 
New  York  City  Criminal  Court  House  and 


154  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

examine  tlie  odd  shaped  heads  and  the 
faces  of  the  young  men  in  the  pen  and  the 
most  skeptical  will  be  compelled  to 
acknowledge  that  criminaHty  is  hereditary 
in  most  cases,  and  the  questions  will  come 
home  to  you :  Should  we  hold  these  young 
men  wholly  responsible  for  their  acts! 
Should  not  their  parents  or  their  ancestors 
share  some  of  the  blame?  On  reflection 
you  will  be  compelled  to  admit  that  it  would 
have  been  better  for  themselves  and  the 
world  had  they  never  been  born. 

MY  DUTY. 

My  duty:  How  should  this  hereditary 
material  be  conserved?  Can  the  man  be 
held  blameless  who  poisons  it?  Is  there  a 
crime  so  base  as  the  injury  of  that  vital 
substance  from  which  spring  the  men  and 
women  of  the  future?  Yes,  a  bit  of  immor- 
tality, a  creative  force,  a  power  not  our- 
selves, ours  not  to  abuse,  but  to  conserve  as 
our  most  sacred  trust,  and  to  hand  on 
unsullied  to  our  children — and  that  is  the 
object  of  these  words  from  one  who  loves 
his   country   and   plainly   sees    she   is    on 


NEEDED    NATIONAL    LAWS  155 

the  road  to  decay,  unless  thinking  people 
realize  the  situation  and  pass  laws  that  will 
prevent  it.  I  call  upon  our  Congressmen,  if 
for  Patriotism  alone,  to  give  heed  to  my 
words. 

Our  country  demands  more  stringent  im- 
migration laws  and  their  rigid  enforce- 
ment,— a  National  Act  for  the  education 
of  our  young  men  in  hygiene  and  their 
duties  to  the  State;  also,  with  it,  at  least 
six  or  eight  months'  practical  training  in 
Army  or  Navy  requirements,  as  our  young 
men  show  a  lack  of  discipline;  a  National 
Prohibition  Act,  a  National  Social  Dis- 
ease Act,  and  one  that  will  register  syphil- 
itic or  diseased  persons;  laws  forbidding 
marriages  between  persons  who  are  of  dif- 
ferent races  or  who  have  hereditary  ail- 
ments, such  as  the  deaf,  blind,  insane,  etc., 
and  persons  who  have  diseases  they  can 
transmit  to  their  offspring.  Our  National 
Government  alone,  through  its  officials, 
should  issue  all  marriage  certificates,  and, 
before  they  are  issued,  the  ancestral  his- 
tory and  the  health  of  both  parties  should 
be  inquired  into,  and  such  other  restric- 


156  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

tions  be  imposed  that  will  insure  to  the 
unborn  his  or  her  rights.  An  act  to  per- 
mit only  native  born  Americans  to  have 
the  right  to  vote  and  only  such  men  or 
women  as  have  acquired  sufficient  land  to 
be  paying  land  taxes  on,  of  at  least,  $2,000 
tax  valuation;  a  National  Birth  Eegistra- 
tion  Act;  a  more  stringent  National  Drug 
Act.  Consider  the  number  of  foreigners 
who  secured  our  American  Citizenship 
papers  in  the  present  war,  who,  at  heart, 
were  enemies  to  our  country  and  who  used 
these  papers  and  their  citizenship,  in  the 
past  two  years,  to  bring  us  several  times 
to  the  verge  of  war. 

Taxation  without  representation  is  ty- 
ranny, and  it  is  unjust  in  a  *^Land  of  the 
Free. ' '  Every  American  born  woman  and 
man,  who  owns  property  or  pays  taxes,  to 
a  certain  amount,  should  have  a  right  to 
vote — and  only  these.  It  will  put  an  end  to 
Public  Stealing,  for  every  voter  will  be  a 
partner  in  our  land,  and  every  voter  and 
his  family  will  be  loyal  defenders  of  their 
own.  It  has  taken  100  years  or  more  of 
the  most  careful  study  for  scientists  to  dis- 


GREAT  MEN  DUE  TO  INHERITANCE       157 

cover  how  to  advise  skilled  horse  and  hog 
breeders,  poultrymen,  dairymen,  etc., 
etc.,  how  to  mate  animals,  but  when  it 
comes  to  humans, — young  in  experience, — 
males  and  females  settle  for  themselves  the 
most  important  question  of  their  own  lives, 
their  offspring,  and  the  future  of  the  State, 
on  the  spur  of  the  moment.  Is  it  any  won- 
der that  our  country  is  flooded  with  un- 
healthy, dissipated,  good-for-nothing  10 
cent  boys  and  girls,  and  that  our  own  Gov- 
ernment recently,  officially,  rejected  75%' 
of  her  sons?  This  sacred  institution  of 
marriage  has  become  a  sacrilege.  Will  the 
Church  not  come  to  the  rescue  of  our  Na- 
tion if  our  politicians  will  not? 

How  then,  it  may  be  asked,  can  the  race 
be  lifted  to  a  higher  level?  How  may  a 
larger  and  still  larger  per  cent,  of  men 
'  'wortli-wJiile ' '  be  produced  ?  Great  horses 
are  due  to  inherent  qualities,  not  because 
of  feed  and  care.  Many  thousands  get  as 
good  feed  and  care,  but  fall  far  short  of 
great  achievement,  because  of  the  lack  of 
inherent  greatness.  Great  men,  likewise, 
are  great  because  of  inherited  worth.    No 


158  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

amount  of  food,  care,  or  education  can  make 
the  average  man  eminent.  No  amount  of 
food,  care,  education,  or  anything  else  you 
like  added,  would  make  a  child  of  Hottentot 
origin  compare  in  any  way  with  the  chil- 
dren of  white  men. 

In  much  less  than  a  century,  trotting 
horse  breeders  have  evolved  from  horses 
of  slow  speed  a  two-minute  trotting  horse. 
Now,  the  test  has  been  the  win-race.  It  is 
true,  the  foundation  of  the  trotting  breed 
is  the  English  thoroughbred  horse,  which 
dates  back  for  200  years  in  the  English 
Stud  Book,  with  700  years  of  actual  racing 
and  selected  breeding  before  the  time  of 
records.  From  this  horse,  bred  to  run, 
American  trotting-horse  breeders  built  up 
a  breed  to  trot,  aixd  to  trot  fast,  and  to  pace 
and  to  pace  fast.  They  have  done  it  by 
mating  the  winning-mare  to  the  winning 
stallion,  if  he  had  the  right  ancestry.  Ee- 
lentlessly  has  the  breeder  eliminated  the 
unfit.  It  has  been  the  world's  best  example 
of  worth  mated  to  worth.  The  human  race 
can  be  improved  the  same  way.  Eminence 
mated  to  eminence,  genius  plus  genius,  abil- 


WIZARD    OF    THOROUGHBRED    TURF     159 

ity  added  to  ability  will  make  better  the 
generations  as  we  move  on.  It  is  just  as 
necessary,  on  the  other  hand,  to  restrain 
the  worthless  and  the  nnfit  from  reproduc- 
ing themselves  as  it  is  to  mate  worth  with 
its  kind. 

The  methods  adopted  by  the  breeders  cf 
thoroughbred  and  trotting  horses  have,  to 
my  mind,  shown  the  methods  to  be  followed 
for  the  improvement  of  the  human  family. 
Families  of  worth  and  ability  must  con- 
serve their  greatness  by  marrying  into 
families  of  genius  and  strength.  The  ob- 
ject of  marriage  should  be  the  production 
of  worth-while  children,  children  superior, 
if  possible,  in  mental  and  physical  qualities 
to  their  parents,  and,  some  day,  we  will 
breed  the  Super-man.  Patience,  Persever- 
ance and  Scientific  Knowledge  are  all  that 
is  needed. 

These  10-cent  boys  and  10-cent  girls  in 
our  land  each  cost,  among  the  higher 
classes,  $10,000  to  raise  to  maturity.  They 
need  more  brains,  and,  when  given  even 
the  rudiments  of  education  that  boys  and 
girls  get  that  are  above  par,  they  fail  and 


160  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

eaimot  go  further.  The  pleasure,  conveni- 
ence and  even  happiness  of  married  people 
are  subordinate  to  the  production  of  fit 
children.  The  evolution  of  the  race  de- 
pends not  on  the  pleasurable  and  selfish 
ends  of  marriage,  but  on  the  birth  of  fit 
children. 

THE  WIZAED  OF  THE  THOEOUGH- 

BEED  TUEF. 

My  neighbor,  John  E.  Madden,  the  "Wiz- 
ard of  the  Thoroughbred  Turf,  owns,  in  ad- 
dition to  the  finest  thoroughbred  stallions 
in  America,  some  250  brood-mares,  each 
selected  by  him,  not  only  for  their  race  win- 
ning qualities,  but  for  their  blood  lines  and 
ancestral  qualities  to  strengthen  the  weak 
points  and  increase  the  good  points  of  the 
stallions  to  which  these  mares  are  to  be 
bred,  so  as  to  get  the  best  results.  Mr.  Mad- 
den goes  back  to  the  tap  roots  of  each  fam- 
ily. These  pedigrees  are  studied  by  him, 
especially  on  the  sire  side,  most  assidu- 
ously, day  and  night,  before  a  purchase  is 
made. 

He  thinks  out  how  this  or  that  cross  will 


BAD   MATINGS   PRODUCE   POOR  HORSES     161 

eliminate  tliis  or  that  weak  point  and 
strengthen  this  or  that  good  point. 

He  knows  that  to  get  money,  he  must  have 
with  the  blood  strong  healthy  pedigrees. 
Sprinters  are  bred  one  way,  and  long  dis- 
tance runners  another.  The  lungs,  the 
bone,  the  construction  of  the  body,  joints, 
etc.,  of  each  family  are  most  carefully  con- 
sidered ;  so,  is  it  any  wonder  that  the  Mas- 
ter of  Pedigrees  produces  the  best  thor- 
oughbred race  colts  in  the  world? 

My  good  horses  have  all  come  from  fit 
matings.  Not  always,  when  I  make  what  I 
consider  a  promising  mating  by  uniting 
blood  lines  of  distinction,  do  I  get  a  horse 
of  real  value.  The  best  blood  lines  some- 
times fail  to  produce  offspring  of  distinc- 
tion. This  we  breeders  expect.  It  takes 
time  to  breed  out  some  latent  family  fail- 
ing in  the  horse  family,  just  as  it  does  in 
the  human. 

In  breeding  horses,  the  thing  we  can  count 
on  with  absolute  certaintv  is  that,  while  all 
good  matings  may  fail  to  produce  good 
horses,  bad  mating  never  produces  a  good 
horse.     We  count  absolutely  on  the  unfit 


163  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

matings    always    producing    an   ordinary 
horse. 

Should  there  be  any  one  who  reads  these 
lines  who  has  not  confidence  in  what  I  have 
said  regarding  regulating  one^s  posterity, 
and  he  soon  is  to  be  the  father  of  an  unborn 
child,  let  him  send  the  color  of  his  and  his 
wife's  eyes  and  hair,  together  with  those 
of  his  and  his  wife's  ancestors,  to  the  Eu- 
genic Bureau  at  Cold  Spring  Harbor, 
Long  Island,  and,  if  they  are  not  too  busy, 
they  will  tell  the  color  of  the  eyes  and  hair 
of  the  little  one  expected,  and  its  possible 
brain  power,  if  further  ancestral  data  is 
provided. 

HOW  TO  ESTABLISH  A  FAMILY. 

If  there  be  any  millionaire  who  wishes 
to  establish  a  family  that  will  last  through 
the  ages,  and  his  ancestral  history  shows 
good  health  and  talent,  and  he  has  a  brainy 
son  of  good  health,  one  who  is  willing  to 
listen  to  common  sense  and  follow  reason, 
I  will  put  this  millionaire  in  the  way  to 
establish  a  family  that  will  live  for  at  least 
two  hundred  years  and  have  brains  and 


UNFIT    PRODUCE   UNFIT  163 

vigor.  A  vast  fortune  will  not  establish 
a  family ;  it  takes  blood  with  a  healthy  an- 
cestry behind  it;  and  it  takes  parents  who 
are  willing  to  make  sacrifices  and  live  a 
proper  life  for  the  good  of  their  offspring. 
As  an  example  of  this,  the  family  of 
Croesus  died  out  long  ago. 

I  would  rather  be  a  child,  born  under 
Combination  I.,  with  the  right  kind  of  an- 
cestral healthy  vigorous  blood  running  in 
my  veins,  and  with  the  knowledge  within 
me  that,  if  properly  mated,  I  could  found  a 
great  family  to  carry  down  with  glory  my 
ancestral  name,  a  family  that  would  be  use- 
ful to  mankind,  than  be  the  only  son  of  the 
richest  man  in  the  world. 

In  this  country,  where  families  rise  sud- 
denly and  die  out,  there  is  now  a  wonderful 
opportunity  to  establish  a  great  family — 
and  there  is  no  chance  like  the  present. 

Such  statements  as  the  above  are  mere 
truisms  to  all  horse  breeders.  The  laws  of 
heredity  are  just  as  inexorable  when  ap- 
plied to  man  as  when  applied  to  the  im- 
provement of  animals.  The  law  of  human 
heredity  that  should  be  well  known  is :  The 


164         THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

unfit  produce  the  unfit;  the  men  of  worth 
come  from  parentage  of  worth. 

Many  women  claim  that  if  they  have 
had  one  child,  or,  at  most,  two,  they  have 
done  their  duty  to  uphold  the  family  name. 
The  wise  men  of  India  realized  that  if  their 
Nation  were  to  be  great,  they  must  breed 
only  from  the  strongest,  mentally  and 
physically,  of  its  members;  and  that  the 
idea  handed  down  for  ages  that  the  eldest 
son  shall  found  the  family,  was  all  wrong; 
so  they  directed  the  Brahma  Priests 
to  instruct  the  mothers  to  throw  their  first- 
born into  the  Ganges,  to  be  eaten  by  the 
crocodiles. 

Sir  Anthony  Mitchell,  in  the  *^  Edinburgh 
Medical  Journal"  of  1886,  found  that  31 
per  cent,  of  all  the  idiots  in  England  were 
first-born  children.  Everyone  knows  that 
in  breeding  a  stallion  or  young  mare  the 
first  colts  do  not  generally  amount  to  much. 
Often,  this  year,  I  have  had  the  remark 
made  to  me  by  breeders : 

**  Peter  Volo"  is  one  of  the  grandest 
horses  ever  produced  and  he  may  be  the 
greatest  sire  in  the  world,  but  I  do  not  care 


LOUNGER  SONS  THE  GREATEST  SIRES  16.5 

to  breed  to  him  until  he  has  been  a  year  in 
the  stud.  I  will  breed  to  him  next  year.'' 
This  same  remark  has  been  constantly 
made  to  me  by  experienced  colored  brood- 
mare men  in  the  state.  Eight  years  ago,  I 
published  a  prediction  that  **  Peter  the 
Great''  would  be  the  great  sire  he  is  today; 
and  now  with  more  and  surer  scientific 
knowledge,  I  make  a  like  prediction  as  to 
*' Peter  Volo."  Among  milk  cow  breeders, 
the  first  calf  is  seldom  raised.  Poultry- 
men  never  use  the  first  year's  eggs  of  a 
hen  or  duck — to  set.  It  is  always  the 
mature  bird  of  2  or  3  years  of  age  that 
produces  the  eggs  from  which  the  best 
young  stock  is  hatched. 

ENGLAND'S  STRENGTH  WAS  BUILT 
UP  BY  YOUNGER  SONS. 

Sir  Francis  Galton,  in  his  writings  and  in 
his  book  ^  ^  Hereditary  Genius, ' '  calls  the  at- 
tention of  the  English  nation  to  the  folly  of 
pinning  their  faith  in  handing  down  the 
family  name  and  the  family  estate  through 
the  oldest  son ;  and  claims  that,  eventually, 
the  English  nobility  will  peter  out  if  it  keeps 


166  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

up  this  practice.  He  proves  this  by  tables 
and,  among  other  things,  states  that,  al- 
though the  oldest  son  gets  the  best  show, 
only  seventeen  per  cent,  of  the  English 
judges  came  from  oldest  sons,  eleven  per 
cent,  from  only  sons ;  thirty-eight  per  cent, 
from  second  sons ;  and  twenty-two  per  cent, 
from  third  sons,  showing  that  the  greater 
preponderance  of  mental  acumen  and 
brains  comes  from  the  offspring  of  the  ma- 
turer  life  and  from  the  more  experienced 
fathers ;  that  the  only  excuse  he  could  find 
for  the  oldest  son  getting  the  larger  share 
of  his  father's  properties  was  to  make  up 
for  the  lack  of  mental  and  physical  ability 
he  had  inherited.  For  this  reason,  the  eld- 
est son's  needs  were  greater,  as  he  usually 
made  ducks  and  drakes  of  whatever  he 
inherited. 

The  Almighty,  seeing  all  this,  established 
the  American,  and  other  Republics,  so  that 
every  son  might  have  a  fair  chance  to 
prove  his  own  worth. 

Havel ock  Ellis,  in  his  ^*A  Study  of  Brit- 
ish Genius,''  page  120,  made  a  very  signifi- 
cant analysis  of  299  fathers  who  had  pro- 


AMERICAN   INDIAN   DOESN'T   IMPROVE  167 

duced  sons  of  genius.  Of  these  fathers,  two 
were  under  twenty;  nine  between  twenty 
and  twenty-four;  and  two  hundred  and 
ninety-two  were  born  of  parents  between 
the  ages  of  twenty-five  and  sixty-five.  The 
greatest  of  our  horses  come  from  stallions 
of  mature  years  and  experience.  What  is 
true  of  the  horse  is  true  of  the  human. 

SOME  RACES  POSSESS  NO  ELE- 
MENTS OF  IMPROVEMENT. 

One  other  interesting  fact  comes  to  light 
from  horse  breeding.  There  is  in  Japan  a 
small  pony-built,  ill-bred,  horse.  He  is  low 
of  stature,  compact  of  body,  sturdy  of  limb ; 
he  has  a  head  as  long  as  that  of  a  jackass. 
He  eats  anything,  and  thrives  on  it.  Years 
ago  the  Japanese  Government  negotiated 
with  me  for  a  lot  of  stock-studs  to  improve 
the  native  pony.  It  came  out  in  the  trans- 
action that  the  first  cross  on  the  native 
horse  by  a  pure  bred  American  horse  had 
little  effect.  The  big  head  and  knotty  body 
would  come  invariably.  These  ugly,  unde- 
sirable features  would  persist  into  the  sec- 


'16S  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

ond,  third  and  even  fourth  generations.  It 
would  be  better,  I  thought,  to  substitute 
new  blood  than  to  try  to  improve  the  old. 
This  would  have  been  done  had  it  not  been 
found  that  there  was  something  in  the  na- 
tive feed  or  climate  that  affected  the  health 
of  the  imported  horse. 

Certain  families  of  men  are  like  the  Jap- 
anese horse. — they  have  no  elements  capa- 
ble of  great  improvement.  The  North 
American  Indian  has  had  the  advantage  of 
civilization  for  three  hundred  years.  He 
will  not  civilize.  The  pure  blood  has  made 
no  improvement.  In  talent,  the  Indian  of 
today  is  no  better  than  when  Columbus  vis- 
ited this  country. 

The  African,  lifted  bodily  from  his  native 
habitat  and  set  in  civilized  surroundings, 
has  made  in  elements  of  worth  no  improve- 
ment. "Without  the  infusion  of  talented 
blood,  he  has  stood  still.  The  pure-blooded 
negro  in  America  has  in  him  no  elements 
that  will  ever  lift  him  above  his  present 
condition,  the  same  mental  and  moral  con- 
dition in  which  he  has  been  from  the  dawn 
of  history. 


CROSSING  OF  DIFFERENT  RACES    1(59 

From  the  many  crosses  of  the  negro  and 

white  race,  there  have  come  some  strains  of 
mixed  breeds,  which  are  an  improvement 
over  the  negro.  Other  strains  have  resulted 
from  the  cross  which  gives  society  reason 
for  deep  concern.  Eeference  is  made  to  the 
half-breed,  who  exhibits  in  his  disposition 
the  baser  qualities  of  both  races.  When  the 
horse  and  the  ass  are  crossed,  the  hybrid  is 
stronger,  tougher  and  meaner  than  either 
breed  of  his  parentage.  The  mule  is  the 
pack  or  work  animal  of  civilization,  just 
because  of  his  toughness  and  of  his  base- 
ness. The  white  race  and  the  negro  are  as 
far  apart  as  the  ass  and  the  horse.  We  do 
not  understand  why  the  mule  is  so  tough 
and  so  mean,  neither  can  we  understand 
how  the  hybrid  man  is  so  apt  to  have  con- 
centrated in  him  the  worst  of  the  two  races 
which  produce  him.  Knowing  the  evils  of 
the  cross,  society  has  done  nothing  to  pre- 
vent it  outside  the  bonds  of  wedlock.  Any- 
one who  has  studied  the  two  races  knows 
that  if  you  want  a  very  reliable  servant 
vou  want  one  that  is  either  all  black  or  all 
white. 


170  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

CEOSSING  OF  T3ISTINCTLY  DIFFER- 
ENT RACES  DANGEROUS. 

The  crossing  of  widely  separated  races 
is  most  undesirable  for  the  reason  above  set 
forth  and  can  be  illustrated  in  the  cross  of 
the  North  American  Indian  with  the  white 
man.  A  eugenic  worker  has  shown  that  a 
whole  tribe  of  degenerate  men  and  women 
came  from  one  ancestry  and  resulted  from  a 
cross  of  the  white  man  and  an  Indian  Prin- 
cess. Hundreds  of  the  descendants  of  this 
couple  have  been  inmates  of  jails,  asylums, 
penitentiaries  and  poorhouses.  Eighty- 
eight  per  cent,  of  the  females  and  90  per 
cent,  of  the  males  were  habitual  drunkards. 
Any  racial  crosses  are  dangerous  and  to  be 
discouraged  in  the  interest  of  eugenics. 
Too  many  misfits  result,  even  when  the 
marriages  are  between  the  same  races,  and 
no  more  should  be  added  by  unions  of  dif- 
ferent breeds.  It  may  elevate  inferior  races 
to  be  crossed  with  the  white  men  of  the 
world,  but  it  works  a  serious  injury  to  the 
white  blood  thus  turned  into  an  inferior 
channel.  It  is  well  to  bring  together  dis- 
tinguished families  of  different  branches  of 


SCIENTIFIC  BREEDING  GETS  RESULTS  ITi 

the  same  race,  rather  than  to  continue  mar- 
riage in  one  line.  We  call  this  an  out-cross 
in  horse  breeding.  When  the  sirens  seed  is 
vigorous,  keep  in  the  high-breeds ;  when  the 
sire's  seed  is  weak,  go  to  a  strong  com- 
moner blood  or  to  a  different  family  of  the 
same  blood.  The  decendants  of  "Happy 
Medium' '  find  a  congenial  out-cross  in  the 

George  Wilkes '  family.  Why  cannot  we  be 
as    careful    in    conserving    the    worth    of 

humans,  so  no  marriages  of  racial  violence 
will  be  permitted? 

We  can  breed  horses  to  trot.  We  can 
breed  them  to  trot  slowly  or  to  trot  fast. 
We  can  breed  them  so  they  will  be  passing 
gaited  or  line  gaited.  We  can  breed  them 
to  pace  and  to  be  so  strong  in  the  pacing 
tendency  that  they  cannot  trot.  We  can 
produce  them  so  they  go  a  mixed-gait,  trot 
with  the  front  feet  and  run  with  the  liind 
feet.  We  breed  them  to  run.  We  breed 
the  high-stepping  horse.  We  can  breed  the 
horse  which  will  go  the  single  foot  gait,  so 
necessary  in  the  saddle  type.  We  are  also 
breeding  safe  ponies  for  children,  draft 
horses  for  farmers,  and  jumpers  for  hunt- 


172  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

ers,   with   distinct  inclinations   to   do   the 
things  we  desire.     Some  years  ago,  while 
riding  in  Central  Park  with  The  Honor- 
able Michael  Bowerman  of  Kentucky,  he 
would  tell  the  families  and  even  the  sires 
of  the  teams  ahead  of  us  by  the  way  the 
horses    lifted    and   put    down    their    feet. 
Several  of  these  conjectures  I  investigated 
and  confirmed.    Careful  scientific  breeding 
produces  such  results — so  that  it  is  all  un 
mistakable  to  an  expert  horseman.     Like 
physical  and  mental  traits  and  character- 
istics in  families  of  humans  can  be  bred 
if  clever  expert  advice  is  taken..  You  can 
produce  a  healthy  family  of  speakers,  of 
thinkers,  of  boys  with  analytical  minds — 
in  fact,  anything  you  want. 

How  is  this  very  great  variety  of  horses 
bred  so  distinctly  and  separately?  The 
answer  is,  by  selecting  the  thing  we  want  to 
reproduce  and  holding  our  breeding  strict- 
ly to  these  lines.  To  get  in  horses  a  gait, 
we  must  select  individuals  and  breed  for  a 
series  of  generations  to  the  same  kind  of 
individuals  with  the  gait  wanted.  All  who 
do  not  have  the  gait  desired  must  be  re- 


ABRAHAM   WOULD'S   CHAMPION    SIRE       173 

jected.  Eejection!  Eejection!  Years  ago, 
here  in  Kentucky,  defective  colts  were  de- 
stroyed, and,  if  a  mare  produced  more  than 
one  defective  colt,  her  registration  papers 
were  destroyed  and  she  was  sold  out  of  the 
state.  Today,  you  seldom  see  a  defective 
colt  or  a  bad  one,  and  so  it  is  that  Kentucky 
horses  are  at  a  premium.  That  is  the  way 
it  is  done  in  the  horse  world.  I  ask,  can  it 
be  done  any  other  way  in  the  human  family? 
In  Kentucky,  the  breeding  of  animals  is 
discussed  as  freely  as  we  in  the  North  talk 
about  dresses  and  hats. 

SELECTIVE  BREEDING  AMONG  THE 

JEWS. 

We  may  talk  all  we  like  about  exceptional 
and  potent  sires  among  animals,  but  there 
is  one  sire  among  humans  who  stands  out 
head  and  shoulders  above  any  exceptional 
potent  sire  among  animals  or  humans — 
and  that  great  man  is  Abraham,  who  lived 
4,100  years  ago. 

Every  Jew  or  Jewess  of  today  in  the 
world  has  stamped  on  his  or  her  face  the 
hereditary  features  of  Abraham  and  in  his 


174  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

or  her  heart  and  mind  Abraham's  charac- 
teristics and  traits  are  deeply  imbedded,  so 
that,  no  matter  where  they  wander  on  the 
face  of  the  earth,  the  descendants  of  Abra- 
ham are  unmistakable. 

The  translation  of  the  word  Abraham, 
means  *^ Father  of  Multitudes/' 

Our  oldest  historical  and  biblical  records, 
and  the  recent  discoveries  in  the  British 
Museum,  state  that  it  was  prophesied  that 
Abraham's  seed  and  that  of  his  male  de- 
scendants should  possess  the  magic  force 
of  potency  and  vigor  and  that  his  descend- 
ants should  increase  indefinitely.  The 
Bible  also  says,  in  substance,  that  the  Jew 
shall  inherit  the  earth.  From  present  indi- 
cations, before  many  years  will  have 
passed,  the  fulfillment  of  that  prophecy 
will  be  realized. 

He  was  the  fourth  son  of  Tereh,  who  died 
when  he  was  205  years  old;  and  Abraham 
was  born  when  Tereh  was  130  years  old. 

Abraham,  at  the  age  of  100,  the  Bible 
states,  became  the  father  of  Isaac ;  and  he 
died  at  the  age  of  175  years. 

It  is  well  known  that  the  Jews  are  a  thrif- 


INTERMARRIAGE  AND  ITS  EFFECTS      175 

ty  people.  They  are  known  for  their  ability 
to  accumulate  money.  A  thoroughbred 
horse  has  no  greater  tendency  to  run  than 
has  a  Jew  to  succeed  in  the  business  of 
accumulating  money.  This  thrifty  tendency 
has  been  perpetuated  among  this  admir- 
able race  of  people  by  breeding  in  a  defin- 
ite way  for  hundreds  of  years  with  money- 
getting  and  money-keeping  in  view.  The 
sons  and  daughters  of  successful  Jews  will 
not  marry  into  worthless  Jewish  families. 
They  must  marry  only  the  successful  of 
their  own  race.  Put  100  thrifty  Jews  in  a 
town  of  10,000  inhabitants,  and,  in  50 
years,  the  Jews  will  have  all  the  money 
of  the  10,000  Christians,  because  they  are 
bred  to  get  it.  Have  you  ever  noticed  the 
respect  for  ancestry  that  exists  among 
members  of  the  Jewish  race  ? 

They  will  even  do  more  than  this.  Young 
people,  closely  related,  like  first  and  sec- 
ond cousins,  inter-marry;  and  even  uncles 
and  nieces  have  been  known  to  marry.  Such 
intermarriages  not  only  tend  to  preserve 
the  character  of  the  race,  but,  especially, 
the  money-getting  qualities,  and  serve  the 


176  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BOKN 


purpose  of  keeping  it  in  the  family.  TMs 
magnifies  family  traits.  It  is  true,  close 
relatives  often  marry  to  keep  a  fortune  or 
a  business  in  one  family,  as,  for  example, 
tke  Eothschilds.  This  results  in  the  children 
from  such  unions  receiving  a  double  heri- 
tage of  a  family  tendency.  Thrift,  being 
a  racial  and  family  trait,  is  doubly  accentu- 
ated by  marriages  of  near  relatives. 

Wlien  people  of  the  same  race  marry, 
their  children  carry  the  characteristics  of 
that  race  and  the  special  characteristics  of 
their  ancestors. 

Imported  ''Messenger"  was  a  thorough- 
bred horse.  His  get  in  America  all  showed 
a  tendency  to  trot.  Both  the  sire  and 
dam  of  ''Eysdyk's  Hamiltonian'^  were  de- 
scended from  Imported  ''Messenger." 
That  is  why  the  get  of  "Hamiltonian"  all 
had  the  trotting  gait.  To  improve  the  speed 
of  the  trotting  horse,  there  were  matings  of 
relatives,  which  correspond  to  the  mar- 
riages of  cousins  in  the  Jewish  race.  As  a 
horse-breeder,  I  must  call  attention  to  the 
danger  of  too  much  inbreeding,  as  it  will 
double,  if  present  in  a  family  strain,  a 


INTERBREEDING  INHERITED  —  TRAITS      177 

weakness,  as  well  as  a  good  quality.  Cousin 
marriages  add  to  the  thrift  of  the  Jews,  but 
it  often  means,  also,  men  of  low  stature 
and  a  lack  of  physical  vigor,  and,  if  prac- 
ticed to  a  great  extent,  produces  deafness. 
It  is  claimed  by  some  that  if  this  method 
is  practiced  for  generations,  one  in  every 
ten  will  have  cancer. 

INBREEDING   AND    INHERITED 

TALENTS. 

I  attribute  much  of  my  success,  as  a 
horse-breeder,  to  the  fact  that  I  early  found 
out  the  danger  of  injudicious  inbreeding. 
The  George  Wilkes'  family  dominated  the 
trotting  industry  for  many  years.  This 
became  an  inbred  family.  I  believed  that 
the  Wilkes'  family  needed  an  out-cross, 
and  my  breeding  with  success  an  out-cross 
like  '^ Peter  the  Great''  to  the  George 
Wilkes'  mare  proved  this. 

The  horse  world  knows  the  wonderful  re- 
sults which  have  come  from  such  matings 
and,  in  this  way,  we  conserved  all  the  great- 
ness of  George  Wilkes'  progeny  and  added 
to  it  qualities  which  enhanced  its  value. 


178  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

I  believe  that  in  improving  the  human  race, 
inbreeding  has  its  place,  but  an  out-cross 
is  often  necessary  to  preserve  vigor  and 
other  valuable  racial  qualities.  In  making 
the  out-cross,  among  humans,  care  must  be 
exercised  so  that  no  antagonistic  qualities 
are  brought  in  and  augmented  and,  where 
such  inbreeding  is  considered,  the  advice 
of  an  expert  should  be  sought  to  warn 
both  parties  that  this  or  that  union  will  pro- 
duce sub-normal  children,  or  defective  chil- 
dren, or  children  with  tendencies  to  this  or 
that  disease.  The  family  of  the  Mikado 
of  Japan  maintains  its  strength  by  taking 
a  female  out-cross  from  the  best  in  physi- 
cal, mental  and  ancestral  history  in  the 
Flowery  Kingdom  at  stated  intervals.  We 
all  know  that  too  much  inbreeding  pro- 
duced the  crazy  Bavarian  Kings  and  caused 
the  death  of  Eudolph  of  Austria. 

If  a  musician  from  a  musical  family 
marries  a  musician,  the  children  all  will 
have  a  talent  for  music.  Should  a  musician 
marry  a  woman  who  only  loves  music,  but 
has  not  devoted  time  to  it,  the  children  will 
all  probably  have  a  talent  for  music.   Let 


LONGEVITY   IS   HEREDITARY  173 

the  musician,  however,  marry  a  woman  en- 
tirely devoid  of  the  talent  and  not  even  a 
lover  of  the  art,  and  an  antagonistic  ele- 
ment is  present  to  destroy  the  heritage  of 
the  musician. 

The  mathematician's  power  comes  from 
his  ancestry.  The  sculptor  inherits  his  geni- 
us from  his  parentage.  Size  of  stature, 
strength  of  body,  love  of  art,  business  tal- 
ent, literary  power,  engineering  and  inven- 
tive faculties,  and  mechanical  ability,  all 
can  be  strengthened  and  improved  by  prop- 
er marriage  selection,  and  longevity  can  be 
increased.  There  is  no  reason  why  the  life 
of  humans  cannot  be  materially  lengthened 
by  proper  breeding.  You  will  find  the  value 
to  you  of  hereditary  health  and  longevity 
if  you  go  to  a  Life  Insurance  Company  to 
get  a  policy.  The  first  question  they  will 
ask  you  is,  at  what  age  your  father  or  your 
ancestors  died,  and  from  what  they  died. 
Your  answer  will,  other  things  being  equal, 
establish  the  rate  you  will  be  charged,  un- 
less you  are  addicted  to  alcohol.  Then  they 
will  add  74% ;  and  if  you  are  a  syphilitic 
88%  will  be  added. 


180  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

These  insurance  men  know  the  most  per- 
tinent questions  at  issue.  Their  experts 
can  tell  what  kind  of  a  life  the  applicant 
lives  and  has  lived.  There  is  no  reason 
why  people  of  today  should  not  live  to  be 
500  years  of  age,  barring  accidents,  and  re- 
tain their  vigor  and  potency,  and  be  free 
from  mental  and  physical  infirmities,  weak 
hearts,  etc.  With  the  unnatural  lives  we 
live,  these  hereditary  weaknesses  become 
more  and  more  apparent.  ^  ^  Man  shall  live 
by  the  sweat  of  his  brow, ' '  but  we  live  lives 
of  luxury  and  we  violate  all  the  laws  of 
nature  and  hygiene,  and  indulge  in  num- 
berless excesses.  In  early  history,  man 
lived  to  be  500  years  and  older ;  by  breeding 
and  care  this  again  can  be  accomplished. 

If  you  have  any  doubt  of  this,  go  to  Rus- 
sia and  Siberia.  There  I  have  daily  seen 
more  old  men  over  one  hundred  years  of 
age,  than  I  have  seen  in  all  my  life.  Some 
say  it  is  because  of  their  rough  food  and 
the  almost  total  abstinence  from  eating 
meat.  There  may  be  something  in  this,  but 
I  am  satisfied  the  principal  reason  is  that 
they  have  inherited  healthier  lungs  and 


UNBORN  MUST  HOLD  FIRST  PLACE       181 

healthier  kidneys,  etc.,  than  most  people, 
and  their  ancestors  did  not  have  the  time 
nor  the  opportunity  to  ruin  them  by  indul- 
gences. 

This  brings  me,  finally,  to  consider  the 
practical  aspect  of  eugenics.  I  believe,  and 
I  am  sure  that  scientific  men  of  eminence 
like  Dr.  Graham  Bell,  Dr.  David  Starr  Jor- 
dan, Dr.  C.  B.  Davenport,  Dr.  C.  L.  Reed, 
Dr.  Robert  T.  Morris,  Dr.  W.  S.  Anderson, 
and  a  host  of  research  workers  believe, 
that  the  human  race  must  be  improved  by 
selective  breeding,  or  more  fit  marriages. 

The  inherent  improvement  of  the  race 
can  only  come  by  obedience  to  the  laws  of 
nature  and  heredity,  not  by  education,  san- 
itation, or  industrial  revolution.  The  solu- 
tion depends  on  having  young  people  of 
merit  make  the  right  kind  of  selection  be- 
fore marriage,  so  as  to  strengthen  the  good 
tendencies  and  eliminate  the  weak.  Once 
get  these  ideas  instilled  in  the  minds  of  the 
young,  and  see  what  a  change  there  will  be 
in  the  morals  of  our  young  men. 

For  this  end  I  strongly  recommend  two 
things.     The  first  thing  is  a  campaign  of 


182  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

education,  the  object  of  which  is  to  teach 
young  people  that  marriage  should  mean 
healthy,  vigorous,  talented  children.  I 
know  it  is  a  difficult  task.  So  many  things 
influence  marriage  that  much  time  will  be 
necessary  to  change  the  viewpoint  of  the 
world.  Second,  to  give  the  unborn  child  its 
rightful  place  in  the  hearts  and  minds  of 
potential  parents.  I  believe  it  can  be  done, 
and  I  am  sure  it  will  be  done  in  the  next 
ten  or  twenty  years,  monumental  as  the  task 
now  appears. 

RECOED  OFFICE  AND  RESEARCH 

FOUNDATION. 
Mrs.  Russell  Sage  is  devoting  the  for- 
tune of  her  distinguished  husband  to  better 
social  conditions.  Through  the  agency  of 
the  Sage  Foundation,  exhaustive  studies 
are  being  made  of  our  so-called  submerged 
classes.  Through  the  desire  to  contribute 
something  to  the  permanent  improvement 
of  the  race,  Mrs.  E.  H.  Harriman  is  direct- 
ing funds  for  investigations,  which  already 
throw  much  light  on  human  inheritance. 
The  Carnegie  Institute  for  Research,  the 
Rockefeller  Institute  for  Medical  Research 


RECORD  OFFICE ;  RESEARCH  FOUNDATION  183 

and  the  Rockefeller  Foundation,  will  all 
finally  throw  great  light  upon  racial  im- 
provement and  be  a  blessing  to  the  world. 
The  findings  of  these  research  institutions 
to  help  the  future  generations  must  in  some 
way  be  placed  in  the  hands  of  marriageable 
men  and  women.  It  will  do  no  good  for 
grey-haired  scientists  and  aged  maiden  la- 
dies to  meet  and  discuss  the  laws  of  eu- 
genics, unless  this  information  gets  into 
the  hands  of  young  people  before  their  own 
marriages  take  place.  Parents  are  too  pru- 
dish, or  they  lack  knowledge.  Schools 
should  take  up  the  study  of  eugenics.  A 
campaign  of  enlightenment  is  necessary.  It 
is  growing  in  influence  every  day.  Every 
large  university  in  the  United  States  will 
some  day  have  a  chair  of  ^ ^ Social  Welfare'* 
or  ^  ^  Eugenics, ' '  or  ^  ^  Genetics.  *  *  We  have 
been  fighting  our  way,  paving  the  road,  for 
the  past  twenty  years,  and  we  now  see  suc- 
cess ahead  of  us.  The  good  work  started  at 
Cold  Spring  Harbor  in  the  East  by  one 
horseman,  and  in  the  West  by  another 
horseman,  will  eventually  interest  the 
whole  country.    We  started  a  few  years  ago 


184  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

with  simply  a  handful  of  thinking  people 
and,  today,  we  number  tens  of  thousands, 
and  the  good  work  is  spreading. 

The  other  matter,  which  to  me  is  impera- 
tive, is  a  *^  Bureau  of  Eecords  and  Infor- 
mation,'^ a  place  that  can  give  the  specific 
ancestral  information  needed  by  young 
men  and  young  women  to  enable  them  to 
properly  marry.  After  a  campaign  of  edu- 
cation has  taught  them  to  see  the  need  of 
selection,  it  is  necessary  that  there  be  an 
Institute  of  Eecords  to  give  specific  in- 
formation as  to  the  pedigreef  of  every 
family  and  its  past  history,  as  to  the 
cause  of  death  and  disease  in  each  family, 
and  some  trusty  expert  scientist  to  exam- 
ine the  pedigrees  and  to  tell  them  how  to 
eliminate  this  and  that  defect  or  to 
strengthen  this  or  that  good  tendency  by 
proper  selection.  I  am  glad  that  such  an 
institution  has  been  founded.  Some  ten 
years  ago  I  looked  in  on  its  beginning,  and 
found  the  records  collected  stood  in  a  three 
by  four  foot  safe.  The  safe  immediately 
gave  way  to  a  concrete  fireproof  vault.  So 
rapidly  has   the  material  grown  that  sl 


PRESENT  SYSTEM  OF  MARRIAGES  WRONG    185 

splendid  two-story  fireproof  building  now 
houses  the  most  valuable  material  in  exist- 
ence for  the  guidance  of  those  seeking  in- 
formation concerning  family  histories.  I 
refer  to  the  Eugenics  Record  Office  at  Cold 
Spring  Harbor,  New  York.  In  building  up 
this  institution,  Mrs.  E.  H.  Harriman  is 
enabling  the  genius,  C.  B.  Davenport,  its 
Director,  to  collect  and  preserve  the 
records  that  will,  in  a  few  years,  be  one  of 
our  most  valuable  possessions.  Already, 
much  of  this  accumulated  material  has  been 
tabulated,  studied  and  conclusions  bearing 
on  eugenics  published.  The  day  will  come 
when  the  good  this  noble  woman  is  doing 
for  our  country  by  establishing  the  Eugenic 
Eecord  Office  will  be  appreciated  and  a 
monument  will  be  raised  to  a  woman  who 
has  saved  a  nation. 

PRESENT    SYSTEM    OF   MARRIAGE 
WRONG  IN  THEORY  AND 
PRACTICE. 
I  cannot  conceive  of  the  continuance  of 
present-day  social  customs  governing  the 
institution  of  marriage.     Today  the  inno- 
cent woman,  her  father  or  her  mother,  have 


186  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

no  way  of  knowing  about  the  hereditary  or 
physical  fitness  of  a  young  man  for  mar- 
riage. Through  investigation  of  medi- 
cal records,  I  have  been  forced  to  know  of 
a  great  many  marriages  too  awful  for 
words,  where  young  married  women  have 
left  their  happy  homes  for  a  life  of  misery 
and  suffering  and  died  in  ignorance  of  the 
cause  of  their  troubles.  I  believe  the  time 
is  very  near  when  adequate  relief  will  be 
given  to  parents  and  to  daughters,  by  mak- 
ing a  medical  examination  and  a  family 
history  a  prerequisite  for  the  marriage 
license  for  a  young  man.  The  world  is  be- 
ginning to  realize  that  it  is  just  as  bad  for 
a  man  to  murder  his  wife  by  infecting  her 
with  a  foul,  loathsome  and  usually  fatal  dis- 
ease as  to  murder  her  with  knife,  or  axe,  or 
gun,  or  drug.  Laws  soon  will  be  enacted 
which  will  allow  the  medical  examiner  to 
protect  women  and  their  unborn  children. 
I  look  forward  to  the  time  when  the  law 
will  require  the  physician  to  make  a  public 
record  of  the  names  of  all  men  victims  of 
syphilis.  "When  this  is  done,  the  end  of 
the  *^ black  plague''  is  in  sight.    Publicity 


NATIONAL  CERTIFICATE  OF  HEALTH         187 

of  victims  will  act  as  a  guarantee  agency, 
which  will  eradicate  the  diseases  by  making 
young  men  more  careful.  In  France,  a 
doctor  is  compelled  to  register  every  case 
of  syphilis  in  the  town  in  which  his  patient 
was  born  in  the  official  hall  of  records, 
where  they  are  kept  for  public  inspection. 
The  same  is  true  in  Germany,  and,  if  the 
doctor  fails  to  so  record  each  case  of  syph- 
ilis, he  is  subject  to  a  heavy  penalty. 

Something  more,  however,  is  necessary 
than  a  clean  bill  of  health  to  make  marriage 
a  success.  The  young  people  want  to  know 
their  own  ancestral  history,  and  the  ances- 
tral history  of  the  families  into  which  they 
are  expected  to  marry,  what  the  strong 
points  of  their  family  are,  as  well  as  the 
failings,  and  from  what  their  ancestors 
died,  so  as  not  to  double  up  family  fail- 
ings or  inclinations  to  such  diseases — as 
for  instance,  when  under  certain  condi- 
tions both  families  have  hereditary  kidney 
trouble,  insanity,  etc.  This  is  the  only  way 
to  spare  suffering  to  the  unborn. 

I  know  predictions  are  hazardous,  but  I 
venture  to  say  that  in  fifty  years  from  now 


188  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

the  Eugenic  Eecord  Office,  with  its 
branches,  will  be  consulted  by  every  pros- 
pective intelligent  bride  and  groom. 
Fathers  and  mothers  will  consult  their  own 
family  records  and  those  of  the  possible 
families  into  which  their  children  may 
marry.  Certificates  of  Eegistration  will  bo 
issued,  just  as  all  well-bred  animals  are 
today  registered,  and  we  will  know  the  good 
points  and  the  bad  points  of  each  family. 
Unless  this  is  done  we,  as  a  Nation,  are 
doomed. 

I  have  noticed  that  when  people  of  the 
same  race  marry,  their  children  carry  the 
characteristics  of  that  race,  and  where 
there  are  two  different  races,  they  gener- 
ally carry  the  characteristics  of  each  race, 
but  the  characteristics  of  the  older  and 
more  established  race,  especially  if  the  sire 
of  that  race  is  inbred,  will  certainly  prevail. 
As  an  illustration  of  this,  I  was  once  walk- 
ing through  a  park  in  a  foreign  city,  where 
I  heard  my  name  called.  I  turned  and  met 
a  lady  of  rare  grace  and  refinement,  once 
one  of  the  handsomest  well-bred  girls  in 
America.    We  had  not  seen  each  other  for 


MIXING  OF  THE  BREEDS  189 

years.  She  had  married  an  ill-bred  foreign- 
er of  immense  wealth  of  an  old  established 
family.  I  said,  ''What  are  you  doing 
lierel'^  She  replied,  ''Playing  with  my 
children,''  and  there  were  five,  all  around 
her,  and  such  curious  specimens  of  human- 
ity I  never  saw;  more  like  monkeys, — such 
curious  little  heads,  such  wiry  little  bodies, 
skinny  legs  and  little  black  eyes,  not  one 
had  a  feature  of  their  beautiful  mother. 
That  girl,  if  properly  advised  by  an  ex- 
pert, would  never  have  placed  herself  in 
such  a  position. 

THE  MIXING  OF  THE  BREEDS. 

Among  horse  breeders,  runners  are 
called  hot-blooded  and  draft-horses  cold- 
blooded. If  a  cold-blooded  Percheron  Stal- 
lion be  bred  to  a  hot-blooded  Thoroughbred 
Mare,  the  life  germs  of  the  male  offspring 
will  contain  all  the  elements  of  both  breeds. 
They  will  be  of  unequal  size  and  of  irregu- 
lar shapes^ — some  quick  of  movement, 
others  sluggish.  Some  of  the  life  germs 
will  carry  the  beautiful  head  and  neck  of 
the  Thoroughbred  and  the  clumsy  heavy 


190  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

body  of  the  Percheron,  and  the  light  legs 
of  the  Thoroughbred  and  big  hoofs  of  the 
Percherons.  Other  life  germs  will  carry 
the  light  body  of  the  Thoroughbred  and 
the  coarse  large  head  of  the  draft-horse — 
or  the  thick  legs  of  the  Percheron  and 
small  hoofs  of  the  Thoroughbred,  etc.  The 
life  germs  of  the  hybrid  are  made  up  of  a 
mixture  of  the  elements  '''hat  compose  the 
two  breeds.  The  result  is  an  unbalanced 
nondescript.  In  the  same  way,  the  female 
hybrid  of  this  combination  will  show  like 
characteristics.  When  two  of  these  hy- 
brids are  mated,  you  do  not  get  a  Thor- 
oughbred or  a  Percheron,  but,  instead,  you 
get  an  ill-formed  ugly  monstrosity,  carry- 
ing the  bad  points  of  both — neither  fitted 
for  pulling  great  weights  nor  for  running 
fast.  Such  crosses  are  an  outrage  on  both 
breeds.  It  is  a  half-way  thing  which  be- 
longs to  neither  draft  nor  running  horse. 
Should  I  cross  a  St.  Bernard  dog  on  a 
Greyhound-bitch,  the  breeding  world  and 
the  intelligent  public  would  censure  me 
most  severely.  But  just  such  misalliances 
are  daily  occurring  among  humans,   and 


PLEBEIAN  MARKS  191 

the  world  only  smiles,  and  their  helpless 
hybrid  offspring  pay  the  penalty. 

Such  hybrid  young  men  and  young  wo- 
men could  be  seen  thirty  years  ago  at  the 
social  functions  of  Chicago's  smart  set. 
That  was  the  time  when  the  hog  and  cattle 
industry  furnished  the  money  for  Chi- 
cago's social  functions.  The  coarse  bred 
frontiersmen  and  cattle  rangers,  becoming 
rich,  had  secured  for  their  wives  refined 
well-bred  women  from  the  East  and  South, 
whose  families  had  lost  their  money. 

The  horse  breeder  of  today  can  readily 
understand  why  the  new  City  on  the  Lake 
then  made  such  enormous  demands  for 
ladies*  shoes  of  the  larger  sizes.  In  hu- 
mans, a  mixture  of  the  coarse  and  gross 
with  the  refined  and  delicate  always  re- 
sults in  too  big  a  foot,  or  too  thick  an 
ankle,  or  some  other  physical  irregularity. 

The  ladies  of  the  smart  set  of  Chicago 
became  worried  over  their  children's  feet, 
and  finally  consulted  experts  on  breeding, 
and,  among  others,  those  at  the  Chicago 
University,  endowed  by  John  D.  Rocke- 
feller, the  horseman.     They  explained  to 


192  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

them  the  cause  of  their  children's  large 
feet  'and  their  other  plebeian  marks. 
Having  acquired  sufficient  money  to  be  in- 
dependent, they  excluded  the  cold-blooded 
of  such  rich  and  mated  their  children  with 
the  liigh-bred  blood  of  the  East  and  South, 
so  that,  today,  the  large-sized  shoes  are  no 
longer  needed  in  Chicago,  but  are  shipped 
direct  to  New  York  and  Newport — for 
these  places  have  become  the  Meccas  of 
the  newly  rich. 

As  we  walk,  today,  on  Fifth  Avenue  in 
New  York,  or  on  the  Cliffs  of  Newport, 
Ehode  Island,  one  can  see  nurses  and  gov- 
ernesses caring  for  these  children  and  try- 
ing to  teach  them  how  to  conduct  them- 
selves and  how  to  use  their  feet  without 
interfering.  Just  note  how  these  children 
are  marked  by  physical  irregularities,  big 
stomachs,  skinny  legs  with  large  feet,  and 
pumpkin  shaped  heads,  or  small  feet,  sup- 
porting beefy  calves  or  delicate  heads, 
above  a  body  like  that  of  a  matronly  wash- 
erwoman. These  unfortunate  children  are 
from  a  mixture  of  hot  and  cold  blood. 
Aristocrats,  linking  their  blood  with  the 


SHAPELY  FEET  NOW  IN  CHICAGO         193 

uewly  rich  of  the  draft-horse  classes,  can 
only  produce  hybrids.  Some  of  the  well- 
bred  families  of  New  York  and  Boston, 
who  have  met  with  misfortune,  have  al- 
lowed their  daughters  to  marry  sons  of  the 
rich  of  Ehine  Wine  names.  Such  alliances 
restore  lost  money  but  breed  an  unholy  hu- 
man mixture,  just  as  they  did  in  Chicago. 

The  ladies'  shoe  and  slipper  factories  of 
Haverhill  and  Lynn  are  now  driven  to  their 
wits'  end  to  design  shoes  and  slippers  to 
hide  the  large  and  ugly  shaped  feet  of  such 
offspring,  until  their  parents  can  find  eligi- 
bles  to  marry  them.  If  the  young  lady  is 
short  and  has  big  feet,  the  heels  are 
raised  by  a  wedge  inserted  in  the  shoe  and 
she  is  compelled  to  walk  like  a  toe-dancer. 
It  is  somewhat  painful,  but  it  shortens  the 
foot  and  is  rather  artistic;  or,  if  she  be 
tall  and  has  long  feet,  the  heel  is  placed 
in  the  middle  of  the  sole  and  gracefully 
curved  towards  the  toes;  and,  when  the 
owner  is  thus  shod  for  a  social  function, 
the  real  heel  extends  back  and  is  bigger 
than  that  of  a  corn-field  lady  of  Senegam- 
bian  ancestry.    No  longer  do  you  see  our 


194  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

yoting  men  wearing  shapely,  straight,  high- 
instep  shoes,  like  Slater,  Young  and  others 
nsed  to  make;  but,  to  meet  the  needs  of 
these  male  nondescripts,  flat  shoes,  cres- 
cent-shaped on  the  outside,  are  required. 
They  remind  one  of  a  flattened  Bologny, 
burst  on  the  outside. 

The  Chicago  and  Western  ladies,  who 
studied  and  practiced  eugenics,  soon  bred 
shapely  daughters,  and  have  lately  intro- 
duced the  custom  of  short  skirts — and  the 
exposure  of  the  legs  to  the  knee,  and  some- 
times further.  To  meet  these  new  condi- 
tions, our  New  York  and  Newport  newly- 
rich  are  securing  from  French  Madams  on 
Fifth  Avenue,  shapely  ^  ^  fats ' '  or  ^  ^  symmet- 
rical'*  for  their  skinny-legged  daughters; 
or  stockings  with  stripes  up  and  down  for 
those  of  the  piano-legged  formation. 

When  Mrs.  **  Newly-Rich '^  explains  to 
her  husband  that  their  daughter  Mary's 
slippers  and  shoes,  on  account  of  the  ad- 
vance in  leather,  along  with  other  war  mu- 
nitions, now  cost  fifty  to  a  hundred  dollars 
a  pair,  you  may  be  sure  that  ninety-nine 
times   out   of  a  hundred  Mary   gets   her 


SOCIAL  ERRORS  MUST  BE  EXPOSED      195 

shoes  of  one  of  the  Italian  shoe  artists  now 
located  on  Fifth  Avenue,  who  transfers, 
by  his  skill,  a  flat,  wide,  flabby  foot  of  a 
young  miss  into  an  apparently  shapely, 
high-bred,  high-arched  aristocratic  thing 
of  beauty.  These  slippers  and  shoes  in 
public  Mary  has  to  wear  until  Pa's  mil- 
lions so  daze  her  suitors  that  they  do  not 
see  her  feet.  Is  all  this  fair  to  Mary?  Is 
all  this  just  to  the  unborn,  to  be  allowed 
to  come  into  the  world,  unfit  to  take  their 
positions  either  in  the  working  classes,  to 
which  one  parent  was  bred  and  born,  or  a 
position  in  the  social  world,  to  which  the 
other  parent  was  bred  and  born?  The  pro- 
duction of  such  offspring  is  certainly  a  dis- 
grace to  the  state ;  and  do  you  not  think  it 
would  be  better  if  they  never  were  born? 

Should  an  observer  go  West  today,  he 
will  find  a  lively  interest  in  eugenics.  He 
will  be  convinced  that  wisdom  no  longer 
comes  from  Boston,  where  we  used  to  get 
the  best  and  latest  brand  of  knowledge,  but 
from  such  AYestern  cities  as  Seattle,  Los 
Angeles,  or  Salt  Lake  City,  which  know 
the  difference  between  brains  and  boodle. 


196  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

Thence  is  likely  to  come  an  enlightened 
popular  system  of  human  breeding  that 
will  correct  these  social  errors  and  show 
the  people  of  the  East  and  South  the  need 
of  teaching  the  young,  before  marriage,  the 
value  of  eugenics  and  the  fatal  unhappy 
results  these  unhallowed  crosses  produce. 

To  illustrate  the  laws  of  nature,  in,  per- 
haps, a  clearer  way,  in  Honolulu,  there  has 
been  an  almost  indiscriminate  mixing  of 
such  races  as  the  Japanese,  Germans, 
Chinese,  Scotch,  American,  English  and 
other  nations.  The  awful  result  of  the 
mixing  of  opposite  and  antagonistic  racial 
qualities  is  that  there  is  no  certainty  as  to 
the  character  or  looks  of  the  children.  For 
instance,  a  man  and  his  wife,  both  giving 
indication  of  being  pure  Anglo-Saxon,  will 
produce  one  child  that  favors  a  Chinaman, 
another  like  a  German,  another  like  a  na- 
tive Honoluluian,  and  still  another  that  re- 
sembles a  Japanese. 

The  Eugenic  Record  Office  had  a  study 
made  of  the  results  from  mulatto  mar- 
riages, in  certain  of  the  Islands  in  the 
Atlantic   Ocean,   where   there  is   no  -race, 


THE  WAGES  OF  SIN  197 

prejudice;  and  their  investigator  discov- 
ered that  when  pure  mulattoes  marry  there 
is  no  certainty  about  the  color  of  the  chil- 
dren. The  color  and  features  vary  from 
that  of  the  pure  black  negro  to  the  pure 
white  Caucasian.  One  child  out  of  every 
sixteen  is  jet  black  and  one  is  pure  white — 
and  the  other  fourteen  range  in  shade  from 
black  to  white;  the  physical  features  and 
brain  powers  vary  in  the  same  manner.  Our 
Government  must  have  at  least  a  Colored 
Registry,  or  our  grandchildren  will  be  mar- 
rying mulattoes. 

An  English  subject,  a  graduate  of  one  of 
her  most  important  universities,  met  and 
married  the  beautiful  daughter  of  a  promi- 
nent American.  Their  wedding  was  quite 
a  social  affair.  They  afterwards  sailed 
from  Boston  to  visit  his  family,  who 
owned  a  plantation  on  a  West  Indies 
Island. 

They  were  met  at  the  dock  by  his  par- 
ents. One  look  was  enough !  She  had  mar- 
ried into  a  negro  famil5^  She  fell  in  a 
faint;  but  silently,  she  accepted  the  situa- 
tion. Her  first  born  was  jet  black  with 
straight  black  hair. 


198  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

A  rieli  United  States  Senator  had  a  girl 
baby  by  his  mulatto  mistress.  When  two 
years  old,  the  Senator,  and  the  mother  act- 
ing as  nurse,  carried  her  to  Chicago.  There 
she  was  placed  in  a  well-known  Catholic  in- 
stitution, with  the  statement  that  her 
mother  was  a  South- American,  who  had 
died  in  childbirth.  The  Senator  and  nurse 
frequently  visited  her.  The  child  grew  up 
with  the  nuns  and  became  exceedingly 
beautiful  and  was  very  popular  with  her 
associates.  She  became  the  idol  of  the 
Senator,  and  visited  in  the  homes  of  Chi- 
cago's most  exclusive  set.  School  oyer,  va- 
cation on,  her  associates  gone,  the  Senator 
had  arranged  to  sail  the  next  week  with  her 
and  her  nurse  to  London,  where  she  was  to 
be  presented  at  Court;  to  settle  a  fortune 
on  her  and  to  leave  her  with  a  wise  Lon- 
don lady,  who  was  to  see  she  was  well 
married. 

She  had  been  forbidden  ever  to  visit  her 
old  nurse — only  to  write.  The  call  of  the 
wild  was  too  great!  Getting  a  railroad 
time  table,  and  seeing  she  could  leave  Chi- 
cago in  the  morning  and  arrive  at  the  home 


FAMILY  SUPERIOR  TO  INDIVIDUAL       199 

of  her  nurse  by  dusk,  she  decided  to  take 
the  trip  the  next  morning. 

Arriving  at  the  station  and  finding  the 
place  was  in  a  hamlet  three  miles  away, 
she  took  a  cab  and,  on  descending,  found 
her  nurse  in  the  road  among  a  crowd  of 
negroes,  one  of  whom  exclaimed, — **Why, 
that  is  Martha's  child  for  sure!''  A  faint 
was  followed  by  a  confession  from  the 
nurse.  Within  three  weeks,  this  beautiful 
highly  educated  girl,  refusing  to  listen  to 
the  entreaties  of  the  Senator,  married  the 
blackest  man  in  the  county. 

In  a  large  city  like  New  York,  where  all 
races  live,  there  is  an  indiscriminate  mix- 
ture of  bloods.  Is  it  any  wonder,  while 
thoughtless  marriages  are  daily  occurring, 
that  we  are  breeding  a  vast  army  of  de- 
fectives, nondescripts,  hybrids  and  such? 
I  claim  that  it  is  unjust  to  the  living  child ; 
and  it  is  denying  to  the  unborn  the  sacred 
right  to  be  well-born ;  and  each  child  has  a 
right  to  come  into  the  world  unhandicapped 
by  physical  and  mental  defects. 

Some  twenty  years  ago,  the  late  Ward 
McAllister  told  the  Social  World  that  there 


200  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

were  only  four  hundred  in  the  social  sets  of 
New  York  that  were  fitted  by  birth,  educa- 
tion and  refinement  to  enter  its  highest  so- 
ciety, called  the  ^^ Patriarch *s  Ball  Set/* 
The  newspapers  of  the  day  took  exception 
— but  facts,  now  proven,  show  that  Ward 
McAllister  was  a  prophet  ahead  of  his 
time. 

The  pedigree  of  a  horse  is  all  important 
in  predicting  the  character  of  his  offspring. 
At  the  auction  sales  today,  you  will  see 
colts  a  few  months  old  sold  at  fabulous 
prices  on  their  pedigree.  The  family  is 
superior  to  the  individual.  The  individual 
may  look  good,  may  show  good  character- 
istics, but  that  is  no  guarantee  what  the 
offspring  will  b^.  The  pedigree  of  men 
and  women  is  most  important  if  valuable 
children  are  to  result  from  their  union. 
So  firmly  do  I  believe  in  the  value  of 
human  pedigrees  and  achievements  for  the 
future  of  the  race,  that,  were  I  young  and 
without  obligations,  I  would  devote  my  life 
to  the  upbuilding  of  such  institutions  as 
the  Eugenic  Record  Office. 

A  priceless  opportunity  is  now  open  to 


PASSING  OF  OLD  N.  Y.  FAMILIES         201 

young  men  and  women  at  the  Eugenic  Rec- 
ord Office,  Cold  Spring  Harbor,  Long  Isl- 
and, where  they  can  attend  eugenic  classes 
and  get  useful  information  which  will  bene- 
fit themselves  and  the  nation,  and  some  day 
be  to  their  great  pecuniary  profit. 

OUE  OLD  NEW  YORK  FAMILIES 
HAVE  BRED  OUT. 

It  would  make  one  sad  at  heart  to  name 
over  the  great  and  good  families  who  made 
the  history  of  New  York  and  this  wonder- 
ful city  what  it  is  to-day,  but  who  have 
'  ^  petered  out  ^ '  in  the  last  few  years.  Their 
family  names  are  no  longer  heard,  and 
their  proud  owners  are  dead,  gone  forever, 
for  want  of  expert  advice  in  breeding. 
They  failed  to  observe  the  laws  of  health 
and  hygiene,  with  fatal  results.  The  expert 
scientists  of  today,  with  their  present 
knowledge,  could  have  shown  them  how  to 
have  preserved  their  vigor  and  their  fam- 
ily names.  One  object  of  this  book  is  to 
call  the  attention  of  the  present  generation 
to  this  and  devise  some  well  laid  plans  to 
prevent  its  recurrence. 


202  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

IN  OLD  NEW  YOEK. 

As  a  small  boy,  it  was  my  wont  to  ride 
around  with  mv  mother  on  her  social  calls ; 
and  many  were  the  old  Dutch,  English  and 
Scotch  families,  in  addition  to  the  Puritan 
and  Quaker  families  that  we  used  to  visit. 
I  remember  them  all  well,  their  peculiari- 
ties and  much  of  their  family  histories.  In- 
sanity and  consumption  were  much  more 
prevalent  in  the  old  families  of  New  York 
in  those  days  than  they  are  today. 

My  mother  was  a  Puritan.  Her  ances- 
tors were  English,  but  had  lived  in  Delft, 
Holland,  before  coming  with  the  Hartford 
Colony  in  America.  In  the  homes  of 
these  old  proud  Dutch  families,  she  was 
exceptionally  welcome.  They  always  had 
something  mysterious  to  talk  about,  and  I 
was  generally  banished  to  the  yard  to  climb 
the  grape-arbor  or  to  play  with  the  dog. 
Here  the  black  man  would  bring  me  cookies 
and  sweetmeats  out  of  a  blue  jar.  All  these 
respected  family  names  have  disappeared. 

How  well  I  remember  these  visits.  The 
ladies  were  all  very  old  and  distinguished 
looking.    They  dressed  in  black  with  white 


OLD  LONDON'S  SOCIAL  SET  203 

lace  collars,  and  often  wore  lace  half  gloves 
and  always  talked  about  the  dead.  Some 
used  plumpers  in  their  cheeks.  Seldom  were 
there  any  children  around  for  me  to  play 
with ;  but  a  black  man  always  brought  in  a 
tray  of  liquor  or  bottle  of  Orak  and  for  my 
mother  a  pot  of  Ceylon  tea,  for  her  family 
never  touched  liquor.  My  grandfather  had 
started  the  New  York  Temperance  Society, 
the  object  of  which,  as  I  remember,  was  to 
abolish  the  use  of  liquor  at  funerals,  and 
from  this  the  National  Temperance  Society 
sprang  of  which  my  uncle  was  the  Presi- 
dent. There  were  few  marriageable  men, 
and  of  these  many  remained  bachelors  and 
some  old  medical  records  and  correspond- 
ence I  procured  indicate  that  the  majority 
were  blanks.    Their  seed  lacked  fertility. 

An  analogous  state  of  atf  airs  occurred  in 
London,  England,  between  the  years  1600 
and  1700.  It  was  such  a  shock  when  it  sud- 
denly dawned  on  London's  smart  set — their 
commercial  social  set — that  an  investiga- 
tion was  made.  It  was  discovered  that 
almost  all  of  the  old  families  of  London  had 
died  out;  while  the  families  of  the  Court 


204  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

society,  with  its  Eoyalty  and  the  Peerage, 
still  existed,  and,  in  fact,  had  increased. 

Here  were  two  English  social  sets  who 
ate  the  same  food,  drank  the  same  drinks, 
enjoyed  the  same  climate  and  whose  so- 
cial dissipations  were  not  dissimilar.  The 
Peerage,  then  called  ^^The  Quality,"  did 
not  entertain  or  associate  with  the  people 
of  the  London  social  set,  except  in  trans- 
acting business.  They  were  called  ''City 
Folks.''  Both  sets,  however,  were  afflicted, 
about  equally,  with  the  Black  Plague.  The 
London  set  consisted  almost  entirely  of  sue- 
cessful  bankers,  merchants  and  profession- 
al men,  who  worked  hard  during  the  day 
and,  when  night  came,  their  wives  and  fam- 
ilies compelled  them  to  devote  their  time 
to  social  obligations  and  entertainments, 
which  were  then  most  engrossing. 

These  were  times  of  great  business  up- 
heavals and  financial  crashes,  and  the  peo- 
ple of  the  London  set  no  longer  had  the 
time  for  outdoor  exercise  in  the  pure  coun- 
try air.  As  their  business  became  more 
complicated  and  exacting,  they  were  con- 
fined more  than  ever  in  the  foul  air  of  their 
offices  and  kept  in  the  City,  with  the  accu- 


THEIR  LIFE   GERMS  WERE  WEAK       205 

mulation  of  worries  and  trouble.  But  they 
did  not  give  up  their  life  of  ease,  luxury 
and  high  living  and,  when  the  pressure 
came,  they  had  not  the  strength  to  stand 
up  and  lost  their  nerve.  They  did  not  have 
the  ancestral  breeding  to  back  up  their 
weakened  constitutions.  As  a  result,  they 
partook  more  and  more  copiously  of  stim- 
ulants to  enable  them  to  withstand  the 
added  strains  and,  with  their  acquired 
afflictions,  their  constitutions  gave  way  and 
their  life  germs  grew  weaker  with  each  gen- 
eration. 

THE  OLD  LONDON  SOCLiL  SET 
BEED  ITSELF  OUT. 
The  London  social  set  apparently  did  not 
go  outside  of  London  to  marry  but  married 
within  their  own  social  circle.  This  was  a 
case  of  weak  kidneys  added  to  weak  kid- 
neys ;  weak  livers  and  weak  tendencies  add- 
ed to  weak  tendencies  and,  of  course,  their 
offspring  inherited  all  their  weaknesses  in 
a  greater  proportion.  As  any  breeder  of 
today  knows,  these  families  were  breeding 
out.  They  had  to  die;  their  fate  was  in- 
evitable.   They  had,  as  it  were,  dug  their 


206  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

own  graves.  When  ihej  did  have  offspring, 
most  of  such  children  did  not  have  the 
strength  and  stamina  to  grow  to  maturity. 
They  died  in  uterus,  or  at  birth,  or  early 
in  life,  and  the  life  germs  of  those  that  did 
live  were  sadly  wanting. 

The  only  members  of  this  old  London  set 
who  did  not  die  out  were  the  temperate 
and  those  who  left  England  for  the  Colon- 
ies, or  went  into  outdoor  life.  And  the  ma- 
jority of  those  who  survived  were  the 
women  who  were  the  more  temperate.  They 
married  out  of  their  social  circle  and  thus 
changed  their  names;  and  so  the  old  Lon- 
don family  names  passed  away.  There  are 
firms  in  London,  today,  where  there  has 
not  been  a  man  of  that  name  for  one  hun- 
dred years. 

The  Court  Set,  on  the  other  hand,  had 
only  royal  functions  to  attend.  They  lived 
in  their  castles  in  the  country  and  enter- 
tained there.  Thev  lived  so  much  an  out- 
door  life  that  it  aided  them  in  throwing  off 
the  ill  effects  of  the  Black  Plague  and  other 
hereditary  ills.  Besides  that,  they  came 
from    an    ancestry    of    men    and    women 


OUR  ONLY  AMERICAN  PEERAGE  207 

who  had  an  established  breeding  for  cen- 
turies, with  outdoor  exercise  to  strengthen 
it.  They  had  more  stamina,  better  con- 
stitutions to  stand  the  ravages  of  disease 
and  the  dissipations  than  the  younger  City 
social  set.  They  only  came  to  London  to 
attend  the  Court  balls  and  functions  and, 
when  they  were  over,  back  to  their  country 
places  and  castles  they  went,  to  their  rid- 
ing, hunting  and  open  air  life.  They  had 
time;  they  were  not  busy;  they  had 
no  worries  like  the  City  set.  They  trav- 
eled on  the  Continent,  and  often  inter- 
married with  the  foreign  royalty  and,  from 
the  best  of  the  foreign  Court  sets,  they  se- 
lected the  well-bred,  richest  and  healthiest. 
These  out-crosses  were  mostly  of  the  right 
nature.  It  was  the  great  Thackeray  who 
once  exclaimed  that  the  English  Peerage 
would  have  been  wiped  out  if  some  one  in 
the  line  of  succession  had  not  once  in  a 
while  eloped  with  the  butler's  daughter. 
These  are  the  reasons  why  the  Court  set 
of  London  exists  today,  and  there  are,  to- 
day, so  few  descendants  of  the  London  so- 
cial set  of  from  1600  to  1700. 


208  THE  RtGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

Now  let  US  go  back  to  our  old  New  York 
sturdy  Dutch  families,  and  those  New 
Year's  Day  customs  of  calling.  They  were 
the  aristocracy  and  as  such  were  very 
proud.  The  Van  Eensselaers  of  Albany 
were  their  ^^Patroons''  and  their  landed  es- 
tates covered  many  hundreds  of  square 
miles ;  their  tenants  were  numbered  by  the 
thousands.  The  haughty  imperious  man- 
ners of  the  then  ruling  ^^Patroon"  brought 
about  the  loss  of  these  great  entailed  es- 
tates and  thus  closed  out  forever  the  only 
American  Peerage.  They  took  little  or  no 
exercise.  They  lived  well  and  drank  to  ex- 
cess, gin,  Suydam  Schnapps,  imported  by 
Schuchard  &  Gebhard,  and  hot  toddies; 
and  the  ladies,  Madeira.  Consequently, 
they  had  poor  kidneys.  It  was  among  these 
old  Dutch  settlers  that  the  term  ^  ^  Two-Bot- 
tle-Men'' originated.  They  could  walk 
home  without  showing  the  effect  of  alcohol 
but  it  was  a  death  blow  to  their  descend- 
ants. My  aunt's  sister  married  one  of  the 
last  of  the  descendants  of  Peter  Stuy- 
vesant,  and  her  husband  was  always  be- 


THE  BLACK  PLAGUE  AFFECTED  ALL  209 

moaning  fate  because  the  name  of  Stuy- 
vesant  must  die  out. 

There  were  then  some  very  aristocratic 
Jews  in  New  York's  most  exclusive  circles, 
the  Tobiases,  Lazaruses,  Judahs,  etc. 
Their  women  were  noted  for  their  beauty. 

The  old  English  and  Scotch  families  were 
fond  of  outdoor  exercise  at  first,  but,  as 
time  wore  on,  their  Curling  Clubs  and  their 
Cricket  Clubs  were  mostly  given  up.  They 
drank  brandy,  port  and  ales  and,  after- 
wards, whiskey,  to  excess,  and  the  ladies, 
sherry  and  port.  The  faces  of  all  were 
flushed  and  the  blood  veins  in  their  counte- 
nances were  dilated.  They,  too,  had  weak 
kidnevs. 

The  war  of  1812,  the  financial  crisis  that 
followed  and  the  Civil  "War  were  troubles 
and  worries  that  struck  the  death  blow  to 
those  old  families.  They  did  not  have  suf- 
ficient stamina  and  were  too  slow  to  com- 
pete with  new  methods. 

From  the  records  of  the  old  doctors,  the 
Black  Plague  affected  the  Dutch,  English 
and  Scotch  families  of  New  York  about  the 
same.     The  Dutch  families  intermarried, 


210  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

principally  among  themselves  and,  here 
again,  it  was  a  case  of  weak  kidneys,  added 
to  weak  kidneys,  and  the  same  weak  ten- 
dencies added  to  the  same  weak  tendencies. 

When  the  English  and  Scotch  families 
intermarried,  it  was  again  a  case  of  more 
weak  kidneys  and  more  weak  tendencies. 

When  the  Dutch  intermarried  with  the 
English  or  Scotch,  which  was  infrequent,  it 
was  another  case  of  four  weak  kidneys,  and 
the  same  two  weak  tendencies  added;  and 
they  both  had,  more  or  less,  hereditary  fail- 
ings, which  the  doctors  of  that  day  were 
unable  to  cure.  The  men  died  off-  young  of 
dissipation  and  overwork  aifected  them,  be- 
cause their  sires  did  not  have  in  their  seed 
healthy,  strong  and  active  life  germs.  The 
daughters  then  began  to  marry  outside 
their  set,  and  thus  the  family  names  were 
lost,  but  every  now  and  then,  when  I  go  to 
California,  Indiana,  or  Illinois,  someone 
will  ask  me  if  I  ever  heard  of  the  Van  D*s, 
the  Van  der  W's,  the  Van  S's,  or  the  Van 
Sin's  of  New  York  and,  when  I  say,  ^*Yes, 
of  course,  I  have,''  they  say,  ^^Why,  they 
were  my  grandparents."    These  old  fami- 


GIRLS  OUTDRINK  AND  OUTSMOKE   MEN      211 

lies  perished  because  they  denied  to  their 
children  the  right  to  be  well  born. 

From  the  fate  of  the  distinguished  old 
families  of  New  York  City  and  London,  I 
want  to  save  onr  present  generation.  I  am 
unwilling  to  see,  without  a  word  of  protest, 
our  best  blood  continue  to  rush  to  extinc- 
tion. As  I  have  pointed  out,  two  things 
brought  the  old  families  to  the  point  of  ruin. 
One  was  over-indulgence  in  the  use  of  alco- 
hol. This  poison  will  render  sterile  any 
family  who  will  excessively  use  it.  It  is  all 
the  more  deadly  when  it  has  as  allies  the 
social  diseases.  The  other  thing  which  led 
to  oblivion  so  many  distinguished  names  of 
the  past  was  the  intermarriage  of  families 
rendered  weak  by  the  same  indulgences  and 
vices.  In  their  marriages,  they  violated  the 
most  fundamental  law  of  biology.  They 
added  weakness  to  weakness.  Thev 
brought  an  alcoholic  soaked  body  to  one  de- 
vitalized by  the  social  diseases.  The  result 
was  that  nature's  law  thus  outraged  des- 
troyed the  breed. 

This  fate  is  sure  to  overtake  our  present 
day  families  of  worth  and  distinction,  un- 


212  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BOEN 

less  they  avoid  tlie  mistakes  of  those  whose 
fate  has  been  recited.  It  is  well  known  that 
the  young  people  of  our  best  families  in- 
dulge in  the  use  of  alcohol,  cigarettes  and 
cigars  at  their  social  functions.  At  most 
every  luncheon  and  dinner,  there  is  set  be- 
fore both  men  and  women  cocktails,  liquors, 
cigarettes  and  cigars.  Young  women,  as 
well  as  young  men,  drink  liquors  and  strong 
wines  and  smoke  cigarettes  to  excess;  and 
the  young  girls  often  outdrink  the  men. 
Whatever  of  worth,  of  brainpower,  of 
physical  vigor  they  have  received  from 
their  parents  is  being  slowly  polluted. 
They  are  thus  rendering  themselves  unfit 
to  produce  vigorous  children.  They  will  see 
when  too  late  sons  come  into  their  homes 
utterly  unfit  to  carry  on  the  family  name. 
The  excuse  book  is  closed  forever.  The 
laws  of  heredity  are  positive  and  unchange- 
able. 

I  do  not  believe  that  young  men  and 
young  women  would  live  the  lives  of  dissi- 
pation which  they  do  today  did  they  know 
that  over-indulgence  meant  weak  children, 
or  no  children  at  all.    I  believe  that  if  they 


BREEDING  FOR  BRIGHT'S  DISEASE      213 

knew  the  truth  they  would  leave  off  the 
vices,  poisonous  alcohol,  cigarettes  and  ci- 
gars. 

Filial  love  will  carry  the  day  for  the 
cause  of  the  unborn,  when  fathers  and 
mothers  are  well  satisfied  of  these  truths. 
For  what  father  or  mother  could  have  the 
heart,  knowingly,  to  bring  into  the  world 
defective  diseased  offspring;  how  could 
they,  with  a  fear  of  God,  look  into  the  trust- 
ing eyes  of  their  innocent  children,  who 
give  them  all  the  love  of  their  hearts  in 
return  for  a  miserable  heritage?  I  have 
noticed  that  children  afflicted  with  heredi- 
tary ills  are  more  loving  and  devoted  to 
these  very  parents — as  if,  by  extra  kind- 
nesses, to  heap  coals  of  fire  on  their  heads, 
— Eetribution.  So  now  I  hang  out  the  dan- 
ger signals  that  all  who  read  may  know  be- 
fore it  is  too  late. 

PLAIN  FACTS. 

It  is  to  place  before  them  the  plain  facts 
that  I  write.  It  is  well-known  that  certain 
constitutional  diseases  are  increasing  at  a 
most  alarming  rate.    Modern  medicine  is 


214  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

unable  to  cope  with  them.    To  mention  but 
one  will  suffice  to  illustrate  my  meaning. 

Blight's  Disease  is  not  only  increasing  in 
the  number  of  its  victims,  but  it  is  becom- 
ing more  deadly  in  its  ravages.  Our  great 
physicians  are  unable  to  ward  it  off  or  to 
stay  its  course  when  it  begins  its  deadly 
work.  They  tell  us  no  one  knows  what  pro- 
duces Bright 's  Disease,  but  any  horse 
breeder  could  answer  that  question. 

On  every  hand,  the  question  is  asked: 
Why  this  increase  in  Bright's  Disease? 
What  can  I  do  to  escape  its  deadly  grasp? 
Its  great  prevalence  is  due  to  one  reason 
and  one  reason  only.  For  generations,  we 
have  been  breeding,  or,  as  the  horsemaii 
would  say,  we  have  bred  for  Bright 's  Dis 
ease,  and  now  we  have  that  for  which  we 
have  been  breeding.  It  is  true,  we  have 
been  propagating  it  unconsciously,  but  none 
the  less  surely.  Bright 's  Disease  is  a 
manifestation  of  weak  kidneys.  By  our 
ignorant  thoughtless  marriages,  we  have 
been  doubling  up  this  weakness.  By  our 
social  indulgences,  we  have  been  adding 
too  great  a  burden  to  the  kidneys,  and 


AMERICA  A  NATION  OF  DRUG  FIENDS    215 

when  worries,  troubles  and  misfortunes 
overtake  us,  our  kidneys  give  way;  the 
result  is  early  death  from  Bright  ^s  Dis- 
ease. 

I  ask  my  intelligent  young  readers  to 
think  about  these  things.  These  are  only  a 
few  examples.  I  could  add  others  and 
others. 

You  of  our  Smart  Set  of  New  York  City 
of  today  are  just  the  same  as  the  commer- 
cial social  set  of  London  and  if  you  do  not 
give  up  your  liquors,  your  cigarettes  and 
your  indulgences  and  devote  yourselves  to 
your  health  and  obey  the  laws  of  Social  Hy- 
giene, your  family  name,  which  your  father 
and  your  grandfather  nearly  killed  them- 
selves to  preserve,  will  die  forever.  The 
French  have  a  saying  that  *  *  In  the  commer- 
cial social  sets,  it  takes  just  three  genera- 
tions from  the  shirt  sleeve  to  the  shirt 
sleeve. ' '  That  means  vour  children  will  be 
weaklings.  They  will  not  have  the  brains 
and  stamina  to  compete  with  the  rising  com- 
mon blood  that  has  gradually  purified  itself 
by  open-air  work,  from  lack  of  time  and 
funds  to  indulge  in  high  life  and  by  mar- 


216  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

riages  with  better  blood.  Yonr  children 
will  either  die  out  or  drop  to  the  laboring 
class.  That  is  why  the  country  plow-boy,  in 
lifers  contests  and  races,  always  outstrips 
in  the  end  the  city  boy  with  his  greater  ad- 
vantages. He  has  the  stomach,  the  kidneys, 
the  brain  and  the  stamina  to  stand  up  under 
the  struggle  of  every-day  life. 

The  country  boy  from  shirt-sleeved  an- 
cestry is  free  from  hereditary  Cancer, 
Bright 's  Disease  and  the  social  vices;  so 
make  farmers  of  some  of  our  boys.  Take 
them  away  from  city  life.  No  society  can 
long  endure  the  ravages  of  these  diseases. 
The  alarming  increase  of  Cancer  is  due  to 
a  doubling  up  of  a  bodily  weakness  sus- 
ceptible to  it.  In  1915,  we  consumed  75,000,- 
000  pounds  of  drugs,  in  addition  to  patent 
medicines.  Weakened  constitutions  have 
forced  America  to  become  a  nation  of  Drug 
Fiends. 

EECOEDS  OF  DEATH. 
As  a  Director  of  a  Cemetery  Corpora- 
ation,  I  have  watched  with  an  eager  eye, 
for  twenty  years,  our  Interment  Books, 


THE   KNIFE   FOR  THE   $1   MEN.  217 

where  the  real  causes  of  death  are  re- 
corded. I  have  seen  by  the  records  five 
cases  of  Consumption  and  two  of  Cancer 
were  the  average  per  page  twenty  years 
ago.  Today,  it  is  five  of  Cancer  and  two  of 
Consumption.  The  reason  is  the  cause  and 
treatment  of  the  White  Plague  are  bet- 
ter known  today  than  they  were  twenty 
years  ago.  Cancer  is  one  of  the  fruits  of 
the  Black  Plague  and  it  is  only  lately  that 
we  began  to  learn  its  cure;  and,  in  fifty 
years.  Cancer  will  begin  to  die  out  if  the 
world  will  follow  the  advices  of  the  ad- 
vanced scientists.  Cemetery  records  show 
that  what  New  York  City  needs  most  is  a 
hospital  devoted  solely  to  kidney  and  kin- 
dred troubles. 

Dr.  C.  L.  Reed  says : 

''Would  I  put  marriage  on  a  mechanical 
basis  and  leave  the  affections  out  of  the 
question  ?  Not  at  all.  I  would  have  knowl- 
edge come  before  love.  I  would  guard  and 
shield  the  creative  force  of  love  before  the 
sentiment  is  aroused.  I  would  make  it  pos- 
sible for  noble  women  to  really  fulfill  their 
desires, — to  have  a  happy  home,  and  to 


218  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

have  sons  and  daughters  of  worth.  No,  I 
would  have  young  men  and  young  women 
of  splendid  lineage  be  i3roud  of  their  an- 
cestry and  willing  to  conserve  its  worth  at 
any  cost  to  themselves/' 

I  want  to  see  the  one  dollar  men  elimin- 
ated, even  if  society  must  do  as  has  been 
done  in  Indiana  and  in  other  states,  render 
them  sterile  by  the  use  of  the  knife.  It  is 
better  for  the  men  themselves  and  better 
for  society.  They  only  breed  ten-cent  boys 
and  ten-cent  girls. 

MODERN   METHODS   OF  BREEDING 
ARE  SCIENTIFIC.      ' 

Every  morning,  at  the  Patchen  Wilkes 
Stock  Farm,  at  the  beginning  of  and 
through  the  breeding  season,  the  semen  of 
its  stallions  is  examined  under  the  micro- 
scope as  to  the  number  of  germ  cells,  their 
uniform  size,  activity  and  vigor.  The  mo- 
ment the  microscope  indicates  that  any 
stallion  shows  a  falling  off  in  sexual 
strength,  he  receives  attention.  If  the  num- 
ber of  germ  cells  falls  below  the  normal 
amount;  if  half  formed  ones  appear,  or  if 


PETER  VOLO  HAS  SIRE  QUALITIES  219 

the  energy  of  the  sperms  is  lessened,  it  is 
to  us  a  danger  signal.  Wlien  this  happens 
at  a  stud  where  stallion  fees  are  from  $100 
to  $1000,  it  becomes  a  serious  matter. 

"Wrhenever  you  see  the  colts  of  an  aged 
stallion  coming  smaller  than  usual  or  with 
parrot  mouths,  it  is  a  signal  that  your  stal- 
lion ^s  seed  is  weakening  and  to  breed  him 
only  to  young  vigorous  mares.  For  ex- 
ample, the  microscopic  examination  of 
the  semen  of  ^^  Peter  the  Greaf  tells  why 
he  is  a  great  sire.  His  germ  cells 
are  even,  full  and  well-formed ;  there  are  no 
defectives  in  them;  they  are  large,  vigor- 
ous and  abundant.  By  a  similar  micro- 
scopic examination  of  his  son,  ^' Peter 
Volo,''  I  knew  he,  too,  must  be  a  great  sire. 
As  soon  as  the  racing  career  of  ^' Peter 
Volo,"  the  champion  trotting  stallion  of 
one  year,  of  two  years,  of  three  years  and 
of  four  years,  was  ended  in  the  fall  of  1915, 
I  began  to  prepare  and  train  him  for  his 
stud  career.  Eepeated  examinations  of  his 
life  germs  convince  me  that  this  champion 
of  the  turf  will  also  be  a  champion  in  the 
stud.    Why  other  breeders  have  not  done 


220  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

the  same  is  more  tlian  I  can  conceive.  The 
palmist  says  the  life  of  man  is  written  in 
the  palm  of  the  hand ;  scientists  might  add 
— ^what  his  descendants  will  be  can  be  de- 
termined by  his  life  germs. 

There  are  many  reasons  why  stud  duty 
endangers  a  stallion's  fertility.  He  may  be 
overworked  by  making  more  than  one  ser- 
vice a  day.  Some  stallions  can  stand  only 
one  mating  a  day;  some  nine  per  week;  a 
few,  two  a  day.  Too  frequent  mating 
greatly  lessens  the  number,  uniform  size, 
virility  and  vigor  of  the  germ  cells  and  af- 
fects the  offspring.  Diseased  mares  may 
carry  to  a  stallion  bacteria  which  will  cause 
him  serious  trouble,  while  any  disorder  of 
the  bodily  functions  interferes  with  his 
sexual  force,  and,  so  every  mare  at  my 
farm,  before  being  bred,  is  examined  by 
means  of  a  speculum  and  treated  with  a 
simple  bacteria  exterminator.  The  higher 
bred  the  mare,  the  more  bacteria;  what 
is  true  of  the  horse  is  true  of  the  human. 

The  necessity  of  such  examinations,  as  I 
have  mentioned,  may  be  seen  when  I  stato 


GRADE  MEN  BY  THEIR  LIFE  GERMS     221 

that  I  once  had  a  stallion  go  through  an  en- 
tire season  without  fertilizing  a  single 
mare.  My  men  could  not  tell  that  there 
was  anything  wrong  with  him  by  watching 
him  during  the  breeding  season.  One  ex- 
amination with  the  microscope  told  the 
story.  He  had  no  germ  cells  of  the  proper 
formation  and  was  retired  from  the  stud. 
At  another  time,  a  great  mare  had  been 
barren  for  five  years.  A  simple  treatment 
of  boracic  acid  and  milk  of  magnesia — and 
the  mare  was  in  foal.  What  is  true  of  the 
horse  is  true  of  the  human. 

This  microscopic  branch  of  science  has  in 
very  recent  years  come  to  the  aid  of  the 
practical  breeder.  We  do  not  have  to  wait 
until  a  year  has  elapsed  to  know  if  my 
horses  are  fertile.  I  find  out  each  day  or 
week,  as  the  breeding  season  goes  on. 

Sterility  in  hogs,  bulls,  jacks  and  rams 
can  thus  be  determined,  if  breeders  will 
take  the  trouble,  by  the  use  of  the  micro- 
scope in  the  hands  of  a  trained  man.  The 
time  will  soon  be  at  hand  when  breeders  of 
all  animals  will  understand  our  methods 
and  the  sale  of  a  male  animal  for  breeding 


222  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

purposes  will  have  to  be  made  on  condition 
that  a  microscopic  examination  of  his 
semen  be  made.  We  will  soon  grade  stal- 
lions according  to  the  size,  number, 
activity  and  vigor  of  their  germ  cells,  as 
well  as  by  their  pedigrees  and  their  blood. 

GRADING  OF  MEN  WHO  ARE  CANDI- 
DATES FOR  MARRIAGE. 

In  Europe  and  the  Orient,  whenever  you 
are  introduced  to  a  man,  his  associates 
and  friends  will  tell  you  of  his  ancestry 
and  their  achievements — not  one  word 
about  money — but  in  America,  the  money 
of  a  man  or  that  of  his  relatives  is  the  only 
thing  discussed.  Such  a  priceless  heritage 
as  a  good  ancestry  is  all  forgotten.  This 
worship  ot  the  Golden  Calf  must  end  soon. 
The  world  already  has  her  envious  eyes  on 
us.  We  have  in  our  midst  some  of  the  most 
patriotic,  liberal,  broad-minded,  gener- 
ous, noble  men  and  women  the  world  has 
ever  known  who,  if  the  rights  of  the  unborn 
are  squarely  put  to  them,  will  give  their  all 
to  help  establish  in  this  beautiful  land  of 
ours  a  Nation  of  healthy,  brainy,  progres- 


MAN'S  QUALIFICATIONS  TO  BE  A  SIRE       223 

sive  people,  and  it  is  to  each  of  these  I  now 
appeal. 

I  ask,  why  should  not  men  be  thus  exam- 
ined and  graded?  Are  humans  of  less  ac- 
count than  beasts?  Our  young  women  to- 
day are  to  a  great  extent  graded  by  the  size 
of  their  fortunes.  Under  the  table  of  one  of 
our  richest  families,  after  dinner,  there  was 
picked  from  the  floor  a  card  of  a  well- 
known  society  man  and  on  the  back  of  it 
was  the  name  of  each  girl  at  the  table,  with 
her  value,  in  dollars.  The  young  man 
needed  the  money  and  won  his  prize  and 
the  young  lady  lost  her  name  and  her  hap- 
piness. Now,  it  is  only  fair  to  the  young 
women  that  young  men  who  are  candidates 
for  matrimony  should  be  able  to  furnish  a 
certificate  from  a  Eecord  Office  that  their 
pedigrees  are  free  from  hereditary  ail- 
ment; and,  from  an  expert,  that  they  are 
sound,  normal,  and  have  the  number  and 
kind  of  germ  cells  which  are  necessary  to 
produce  intelligent,  healthy  and  talented 
children,  and  they  be  graded,  accordingly, 
in  what  class  each  stands — according  to 
his  worth  as  a  sire  in  the  A,  B,  C,  D,  E, 


224  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

or  F  class.  F  represents  a  *  *  blank, ' '  a  male 
only  in  name.  There  are  many  fine  looking 
fellows  in  the  F  class.  It  is  the  sire  that 
marks  the  child  as  to  its  health,  vigor,  men- 
tal and  physical  qualities.  And,  why  should 
not  a  wife,  each  spring,  before  she  mates 
with  her  husband,  have  him  microscopically 
examined,  just  as  we  examine  a  stallion? 
If  this  were  done,  we  would  have  healthier 
longer-lived  men,  stronger  and  happier 
children.  The  Wasserman  blood  tests  tell 
999  times  out  of  a  1,000  if  a  man  has  the 
germs  of  syphilis  in  his  blood.  As  a  suitor 
for  my  daughter's  hand,  an  intelligent,  en- 
terprising, active,  healthy  young  man  of 
good  character  without  a  dollar,  but  with 
good  habits,  good  education,  good  ancestral 
pedigree  and  certificate  that  he  is  in  Class 
A  would  stand  higher  in  my  estimation  than 
a  man  with  many  millions  and  a  shaky  pedi- 
gree even  if  he  had  a  certificate  of  health 
and  good  character. 

Recently,  as  handsome  and  fine  a  speci- 
men of  physical  humanity  as  you  want  to 
look  at,  one  in  one  hundred  thousand,  came 
to  tell  me  that  he  was  about  to  marry.    I 


UNDERTAKER  NEVER  DECEIVED         225 

immediately  sent  him  to  a  chemist,  who 
years  before  had  helped  save  his  life  from 
the  dread  disease,  syphilis,  and,  to  his  and 
my  amazement,  a  few  deadly  germs  were 
found  in  his  blood.  After  a  short  treat- 
ment, he  was  well — the  test  showed  that  he 
was  cured.  Just  pause  and  think  of  the 
amount  of  agony  and  sorrow  saved ! 

Another  man,  whom  I  know  well,  lay  sick 
— and  the  idea  occurred  to  him  that,  per- 
haps, there  might  be  left  in  him  some  germs 
of  gonorrhoea,  of  which  he  had  supposed 
himself  cured  thirty  years  before.  He  sent 
for  a  most  distinguished  genito-urinary 
specialist,  and  right  in  the  urethra  was 
found  a  hard  cyst,  and,  when  cut  open  and 
put  under  a  microscope,  in  its  center  were 
gonococci.  A  germ,  like  the  seed  in  the 
mummy,  three  thousand  years  ago,  never 
dies,  for  it  propagates  its  progeny  and  its 
family  is  immortal. 

Some  years  ago,  three  eminent  surgeons 
were  examining  me,  the  object  in  view 
being  an  operation  for  a  blow  over  the  kid- 
neys, which  had  burst  a  blood  vessel  and 
left  a  large  blood  clot.  They  told  me  that  if 


226  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

I  ever  had  contracted  or  inherited  syphilis 
I  would  die  from  the  effects  of  the  opera- 
tion. I  stated  that  I  never  had  contracted 
nor  had  I  inherited  the  disease.  Later,  I 
discovered  them  examining  my  blood,  and 
said  to  them,  ^*Why  did  you  not  believe 
meV^  They  laughed  and  said,  ^^You  have 
no  idea  of  the  large  percentage  of  people 
who  either  have  syphilis  by  inheritance  or 
from  lack  of  care.  We  never  take  anyone's 
word  on  that  poinf  I  replied,  ^^Yes;  I 
know  you  do  not  for  our  cemetery  buries 
thousands,  yearly,  for  whom  you  doctors 
give  certificates  of  death  from  heart  failure 
and  the  like,  but  you  never  deceive  the  un- 
dertaker." 

Marriage  is  for  the  purpose  of  founding 
a  home  and  family.  When  a  woman  ar- 
rives at  that  state  in  her  career,  and  is 
ready  to  agree  to  a  partnership  with  a  home 
and  family  in  view,  it  is  due  her  that  she 
should  know  all  about  the  man  whom  she  is 
about  to  marry.  Science  is  now  able  to 
give  the  exact  information  and  to  tell  her 
wJiat  kind  of  children  she  will  produce  if  so 


YOUNG  MEN  OF  TODAY  LACK  BREEDING  227 

mated,  instead  of  the  traditional  ^^leap  in 
the  dark.'' 

Should  I  sell  a  mortgaged  house  and  lot, 
asserting  to  the  purchaser  that  the  prop- 
erty is  free  and  clear,  I  would  go  to  the 
penitentiary;  but  if  a  young  man  encum- 
bered with  disease  today  marries  a  trust- 
ing young  woman,  knowing,  as  he  must, 
that  he  is  sending  her  to  a  life  of  misery 
and  shame,  this  scoundrel  gets  off  with  con- 
gratulations from  his  boon  companions; 
and  the  question  is, — ^^what  are  you  going 
to  do  about  it  r' 

Did  young  men  know  that,  at  certain 
ages,  they  must  submit  to  examination  and 
be  graded  as  to  physical  and  sexual  vigor, 
and  the  results  of  those  examinations  be 
made  available  for  the  use  of  the  public, 
and  the  report  made  an  official  record^ 
there  would  be  a  wonderful  change  in  the 
amount  of  wild  oats  sown  and  a  great  les- 
sening of  the  harvest  of  social  diseases. 
*^ Safety  First''  would  be  their  motto. 

GOVERNMENT  RECORDS  PROVE 
THAT  75%  OF  OUR  YOUNG  MEN  ARE 
SO  INFERIOR  IN  BREEDING  THAT 


228  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

THEY  CANNOT  PASS  THE  SIMPLEST 
ARMY  AND  NAVY  MENTAL  AND 
PHYSICAL  TESTS. 

That  some  attention  should  be  given  to 
the  future  of  the  American  boy  is  brought 
out  by  the  Government  Report  on  an  exam- 
ination of  the  recruits  accepted  by  the 
United  States  Army  during  May,  1916. 
There  were  14,020  applicants  for  admis- 
sion to  the  army.  Of  this  number,  11,081, 
or  over  77%,  were  rejected,  because  of 
their  physical  or  mental  unfitness;  and, 
as  I  before  stated,  only  defects  were  con- 
sidered which  prevented  applicants  from 
active  service.  The  rejections  in  certain 
New  York  City  recruiting  offices  were  80% 
of  those  making  application.  A  few  of 
these  cases  come  under  the  head,  ^Mue  to 
inability  to  speak  and  write  English,''  but 
the  rejections  for  the  most  part  are  due 
to  physical  defects,  the  main  physical  de- 
fects being  the  ears,  eyes,  lungs  and  feet. 

The  use  of  alcohol  and  cigarettes  causes 
some  to  be  rejected.  The  chest  and  muscu- 
lar development  of  the  country  boy  exceeds 
that  of  the  city  boy ;  but  the  city  boy,  after 


EXAMINATION  BEFORE  MARRIAGE       229 

having  a  yearns  training,  acquires  about  the 
same  chest  development  as  the  country  boy. 
The  German  Army  records  show  that  army 
training  lengthens  the  country  boy's  life  as 
much,  often,  as  five  years,  and  adds  more 
to  the  life  of  the  city  boy.  This  is  due  to 
the  conditions  under  which  the  boys  of  to- 
day are  being  born  and  reared.  It  shows  a 
steady  tendency  to  physical  degeneracy. 
Where  will  it  all  end? 

It  appears  that  rejections  for  the  Navy 
run  as  high  as  871/2%?  for  they  are  more 
rigid  in  their  requirements  than  the  Army. 
Not  all  rejections,  by  any  means,  are  due  to 
hereditary  defects,  but  a  large  per  cent, 
are  due  to  hereditary  causes.  A  nation,  in 
its  defense  ^nd  in  its  commercial  and  busi- 
ness enterprises,  can  rise  no  higher  than 
its  manhood.  It  seems  to  me,  the  time  has 
come  when  we  must  consider  a  method  of 
securing  better  mentally  and  physically  fit 
men ;  and,  to  do  this,  we  must,  at  once,  edu- 
cate our  citizens  to  realize  that  to  have  its 
men  and  women  free  from  hereditary  phy- 
sical and  mental  defects  is  of  greater  value 


230  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

to  our  nation  than  the  means  of  acquiring 
wealth,  for  such  wealth  is  temporary. 

In  a  certain  recruiting  ofSce  in  New  York 
City,  90%  of  those  who  applied  were  re- 
jected ;  in  Kentucky,  65%.  In  the  Navy  Ee- 
serve  applications  in  Illinois,  76%  were  re- 
jected. 

The  recruiting  officers  of  our  Army  and 
of  our  Navy  must  reject  men  because  they 
are  too  small  and  lack  chest  expansion,  be- 
cause they  have  defective  vision,  hearing 
and  lung  expansion,  because,  in  short, — or 
defective  bodies.  To  sum  it  up,  they  are 
physical  weaklings. 

IF  OUR  ARMY  AND  NAVY  COM- 
PEL EXAMINATIONS  OF  MEN  WHO 
ARE  TO  BE  FOOD  FOR  CANNONS 
AND  SUBMARINES,  OUR  GOVERN- 
MENT MUST  PASS  LAY\^S  REQUIR- 
ING THE  SAME  KIND  OF  EXAMINA- 
TIONS BEFORE  MARRIAGE  OF  OUR 
YOUNG  MEN  AND  WOMEN,  IF  THEIR 
OFFSPRING  ARE  TO  BE  OUR  FU- 
TURE SOLDIERS  AND  SAILORS. 

If  the  United  States  Government  will,  to- 
day, only  accept  for  the  Army  and  Navy 


AMERICAN   NATION   ON   THE   DECLINE      231 

young  men,  who  are  the  healthiest  and  best, 
physically  and  mentally,  for  food  for  the 
cannon,  is  it  not  equally,  if  not  more,  im- 
portant that  laws  should  be  passed  that 
will  insure  the  breeding  of  such  individ- 
uals? And  to  insure  this  before  marriage 
licenses  are  issued,  equally  as  rigid  exam- 
inations as  the  Government  makes  today 
for  the  soldier  or  sailor  must  be  made  of 
the  young  men  who  are  candidates  for 
marriage,  for  they  are  to  be  the  sires  of 
our  future  citizens,  our  future  soldiers  and 
sailors. 

If  such  a  large  percentage  of  our  young 
men  are  rejected  today,  why,  fifty  years 
hence,  we  will  have  no  young  men  who  will 
pass  the  present  Government  examination ; 
for  there  are  three  infallible  laws  in  breed- 
ing, viz. : 

First :  Like  produces  like  or  a  likeness  of 
a  former  ancestor. 

Second:  The  inferior  of  any  animal  is 
the  more  prolific. 

Third:  Defectives  produce  offspring  in- 
ferior to  themselves. 


232  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

With  sucli  proofs  before  us,  is  it  not  evi- 
dent that  the  American  Nation  is  on  the 
decline?  And,  is  it  not  time  for  patriotic 
Americans  to  inquire  what  is  best  to  be 
done  to  avert  this  inevitable  crisis? 

I  recently  had  a  talk  with  a  high 
official  of  our  navy.  I  remarked  that  I 
was  glad  our  Government  is  building  so 
many  valuable  additions  to  our  navy.  His 
reply  was:  ^^I  don't  know  where  we  are 
going  to  get  sufficient  competent  officers  to 
command  tliem.  We  are  having  trouble 
now  to  properly  command  the  ships  we 
have.  What  we  need  for  a  Secretary'-  of  the 
Navy  is  an  energetic  able  man  of  business 
ability,  who  has  spent  a  good  part  of  his 
life  in  the  navy  and  knows  its  needs,  and 
is  skilled  in  naval  affairs.  The  position 
should  not  be  a  political  plum,  a  reward  for 
getting  presidential  votes.  Why,  if  our 
Naval  Academy  at  Annapolis  and  our  Mil- 
itary Academy  at  West  Point  were  filled 
today  to  overflowing,  they  could  not  supply 
enough  officers  for  our  ships  or  our  army. 
The  ships  we  have  in  the  navy  today  are 
not  properly  commanded  by  competent  of- 


THE  AMERICAN  BABY  233 

ficers.  That  is  wtiy  we  have  lost  so  many 
ships.  As  for  sailors  and  marines,  you 
have  no  idea  of  the  number  of  mentally  and 
physically  unfit  who  apply  and  are  re- 
jected. What  we  need  are  young  men  of 
superior  brains  and  good  health  for  our 
naval  and  military  academies,  but  they  are 
not  to  be  found. ' ' 

We  have  no  use  for  a  weak  horse.  We 
breed  them  so  they  will  have  vigor,  stamina 
and  endurance.  Men  who  can  successfully 
carry  on  the  industries  of  our  country  and 
defend  the  nation  against  her  foes  must 
be  men  of  vigor,  stamina  and  strength.  In 
a  word,  they  must  have  good  constitutions 
and  the  right  ancestry.  There  is  but  one 
way  to  secure  such  men  and  that  is  to  breed 
them,  just  as  we  breed  horses  or  cattle, 
to  meet  and  fill  every  condition  and  purpose 
for  which  their  station  in  life  intended 
them.  It  will  be  sure  to  produce  more  con- 
tentment and  happiness,  but  the  all-import- 
ant thing  is  to  see  that  our  children  come 
into  the  world  free  from  physical  and  men- 
tal defects  and  that  they  are  superior  in 
every  respect  to  their  parents;  and  when 


234  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

parents  are  not  actuated  by  such  desires 
and  motives  tliey  lack  filial  affection  and 
patriotism. 

We  now  breed  horses  to  go,  at  the  age  of 
three  years  three,  four  and  five  or  more 
mile  heats,  in  longVirawn-out  grilling  races, 
\  at  a  gait  of  less  than  2 :08  for  all  the  heats. 
We  do  it  by  selection  for  gait,  for  speed,  for 
stamina,  for  intelligence,  for  soundness, 
and  for  toughness.  There  is  nothing  to 
prevent  the  80  per  cent,  of  rejected  men 
reproducing  their  kind.  We  seem  to  think 
more  of  a  horse,  or  a  cow,  or  a  hog,  than  of 
a  man. 

Years  ago,  I  used  to  write,  occasionally, 
for  a  little  sheet,  called  the  *' American 
Baby."  Dr.  D^vid  Starr  Jordan  was  a 
regular  contributor.  It  finally  lost  its  pa- 
tronage and  failed,  because  it  exposed  to 
the  world  the  weaklings  our  American 
mothers  were  producing.  Mothers  were 
not  inclined  to  take  a  practical  view  of  the 
situation  and  did  not  care  to  educate  their 
sons  and  daughters  so  as  to  avoid  their  par- 
ents' mistake  in  mating  but  were  inclined 
to  tell  others  in  confidence  how  each  had 


UNBORN  NEED  ABLE  CHAMPIONS        235 

made  unfortunate  selections  in  their  hus- 
bands. 


AMEEICA  NEEDS  ABLE  CHAMPIONS 
OF  HER  UNBORN  BABES. 

What  we  need  in  this  country,  more  than 
anything  else  to-day,  are  patriotic  states- 
men of  great  brains  and  power  of  expres- 
sion, educated  as  to  the  needs  of  our  nation 
in  these  respects,  who  will  look  into  these 
subjects  from  a  scientific  standpoint  and 
will  then  champion  the  cause  of  the 
^^ American  Baby.''  The  German  Kaiser 
is  the  only  great  man  who  has  had  the  as- 
tuteness to  solve  these  problems  and  the 
power  to  direct  the  passing  of  laws  to  even- 
tually eradicate  from  Germany  these  so- 
cial diseases  and  their  effect  on  his  sub- 
jects' descendants.  The  Japanese  are  fast 
attaining  importance  as  they  look  into 
these  subjects,  and  where  will  we,  as  a 
nation,  be  in  100  years,  if  our  great  men 
and  our  great  teachers  of  science  do  not 
come  to  America's  rescue  and  show  our 
young  people,  before  it  is  too  late,  the  im- 


236  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

portance  of  these  matters  to  themselves 
and  to  their  children? 

The  time  is  near  at  hand  when  the  United 
States  Government  must,  for  six  months  at 
least,  take  every  boy  between  the  ages  of 
fifteen  and  sixteen  to  a  Military  camp  or 
on  the  Naval  Reserve  and  give  him  a  train- 
ing in  the  rudiments  of  protection,  and  edu- 
cate him  and  instruct  him  as  to  his  duties  to 
the  State  and  to  himself  in  sex  hygiene.  If 
this  were  done,  the  country  would  be  safe 
from  foreign  invasion  and  we  would  have 
healthier,  more  loyal,  and  longer-lived  citi- 
zens. 

Society  would  heartily  endorse  such  a 
propaganda  could  it  be  known  how  great  is 
the  agony  of  the  thousands  of  good  women 
who,  in  marriage,  have  drawn  blanks,  in- 
stead of  men.  The  story  of  the  divorce 
court  reveals  something  of  what  these 
splendid  women  have  had  to  endure  and 
there  are  more  of  such  cases  than  the  world 
generally  knows.  I  would  call  in  the  aid  of 
science  in  the  way  of  preliminary  examina- 
tions for  the  purpose  of  making  the  disap- 
pointment and  the  agony  of  such  divorces 


WASTED  LIFE  REFLECTED  IN  CHILD     237 

unnecessary.  One  further  step,  perhaps,  is 
necessary  to  guard  the  life  and  health  of 
the  wife,  as  well  as  the  unborn  child.  The 
penalty  for  a  husband  knowingly  to  carry 
the  social  disease  into  his  home  should  be 
more  severe  than  for  the  crime  of  cold- 
blooded murder. 

Such  examinations  as  I  am  advocating 
would  prevent  a  condition  to  pregnant 
women  which  often  is  seen  in  the  incubation 
of  eggs.  The  life  germ  of  the  egg,  due  to 
a  union  of  a  germ  cell  from  the  male  and 
female,  will  show  various  degrees  of  vigor. 
Some  die  before  development  starts ;  some 
germs  live  3,  5,  10,  15  or  18  days.  Anyone 
who  has  operated  an  incubator  has  seen  the 
little  black  spots  in  the  egg  appear  and 
knows  the  germ  is  dead.  Others  are  too 
weak  to  break  away  from  the  shell,  while  a 
certain  per  cent,  have  only  vitality  enough 
to  carry  them  for  a  few  days  after  hatch- 
ing. If  you  examine  such  chicks,  you  will 
discover  that  many  are  defective ;  club  feet, 
twisted  necks  or  backs,  or  are  otherwise 
physically  and  mentally  irregular;  and  if 
vou  examine  the  dead  chicks  in  the  shells, 


238  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

you  will  generally  find  they  are  physically 
defective. 

The  lack  of  life  force  in  the  developing 
chick  is  due  to  the  sexual  weakness  of 
the  male  bird.  One  of  his  defective  life 
germ  centers  at  the  time  of  mating  has 
floated  over  and  joined  one  of  the  centers 
of  the  female,  thus  producing  a  defective 
chick.  Prospective  healthy  mothers  find 
themselves  often  trying  to  bring  to  the 
hour  of  birth  a  new  life  too  weak  for  the 
ravages  of  this  old  world,  because  the  father 
of  the  child  had  wasted  his  \dgor  in  riotous 
living  and  his  seed  was  diseased  or  too 
weak  or  there  were  hereditary  defects  in 
his  life  germs  which  produced  offspring 
that  were  physically  and  mentally  irregu- 
lar. Would  a  girl  marry  a  used  up  man,  or 
one  whose  germs  of  life  to  her  mating  were 
likely  to  produce  club-footed,  crooked- 
spined,  lop-sided  or  mentally  defective  off- 
spring if  her  eyes  were  opened  to  the  mis- 
ery sure  to  follow?  A  lady  who  had  given 
birth  to  five  children,  four  of  whom  were 
either  club-footed,  crooked-spined  or  had 
other  physical  or  mental  imperfections,  at 


WHY  THEY  CRY   BIRTH  CONTROL!        239 

last  gave  birth  to  a  perfect  specimen  of  a 
child  and,  in  her  joy,  exclaimed  to  her 
friends, — ^^My  doctor  told  me  my  husband 
and  I  were  perfectly  formed;  that  there 
was  no  known  reason  for  our  defective 
children,  so  I  just  kept  on  having  children 
and  now  I  am  happy ! '  *  Was  this  fair  to  the 
unborn,  or  to  the  children  who  were  born? 
If,  instead  of  consulting  a  doctor,  she  had 
consulted  a  scientific  poultry  breeder,  he 
could  have  explained  the  cause. 

Just  such  examples  as  these  have  pro- 
duced the  present  hysteria  and  the  cry 
about  ^^ Birth  Control."  Get  to  the  cause! 
If  men  and  women  would  only  lead  normal 
natural  lives,  give  up  liquor,  cigarettes  and 
drugs,  be  themselves  free  from  disease  and 
hereditary  defects,  they  would  not  give 
birth  to  defective  children  and  no  woman 
would  have  any  fear  of  giving  birth  to 
children. 

We  need  far  more  stringent  immigra- 
tion laws,  laws  compelling  the  social  dis- 
eases of  men  and  women  to  be  made  a  sub- 
ject of  public  record,  that  men  be  ster- 
ilized who  are  so  diseased  and  defective 


2-10  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

that  they  can  only  produce  defective  off- 
spring; laws  should  be  passed,  as  I  have 
suggested,  forbidding  the  marriage  of  per- 
sons whose  defects  are  hereditary. 

THE   VALUE    OF   REGISTKY   ASSO- 
CIATIONS. 

The  first  object  the  eye  meets  in  the  stud- 
barn  hanging  on  the  wall  of  any  breeding 
farm  is  the  framed  State  Veterinary  Cer- 
tificate of  the  horse,  jack,  bull,  etc.,  setting 
forth  that  on  such  and  such  a  day  of  that 
year,  this  stallion,  bull,  jack,  etc.,  whose 
number  is  so  and  so  in  the  Eegistry  of  the 
Association  in  which  he  is  classed,  and 
which  Association  is  recognized  by  the 
United  States  Department  of  Agriculture, 
has  been  inspected  by  the  State  Official  and 
he  has  been  found  to  be  free  from  disease, 
hereditary  and  physical  imperfections  and 
that  the  State  will  allow  him  to  stand  for 
public  service. 

Next  hangs  the  pedigree  of  the  stallion. 
It  will  tell  the  class  to  which  he  belongs 
in  trotting,  running,  draft,  etc.,  etc.,  and 
will  be  certified  to  by  the  Board  of  Eeg- 


SPENDING   MILLIONS   ON  CATTLE         241 

istry  of  that  Association.  It  also  will  cer- 
tify that  they  have  examined  the  ancestral 
pedigrees  of  that  stallion.  Likewise  it  will 
show  the  tap  roots  from  which  the  ancestors 
of  this  or  that  family  came,  going  back,  say 
fifty  to  one  hundred  years  or  more.  The 
official  number  of  each  male  ancestor  will  be 
given  and  the  names  of  the  most  illustrious 
offspring  of  each  ancestor,  with  their 
achievements  and  their  records,  with  refer- 
ences to  the  official  registry  book. 

What  is  true  of  the  stallion  is  true  of  the 
bull,  the  boar,  the  ram,  the  jack,  the  dog, 
etc.;  so,  by  a  glance  at  the  pedigree,  any 
intelligent  breeder,  who  brings  his  mare, 
cow,  sow  or  ewe  to  be  bred,  will  have  a 
general  knowledge  of  the  kind  of  colt,  calf, 
pig,  sheep,  etc.,  the  mating  will  produce, 
and  be  able  to  judge  in  a  general  way  about 
what  their  value  and  future  achievements 
will  be.  That  is  why  a  breeder  pays  one 
dollar  for  the  service  fee  of  one  stallion  or 
one  thousand  dollars  for  another. 

The  people  of  this  country  have  no  idea 
of  the  millions  and  millions  of  dollars  that 


242  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

are  today  invested  in  tliese  ancestral  pedi- 
gree associations  of  our  domestic  animals 
and  barnyard  fowl. 

The  Am.  Jersey  Cattle  Club  owns  a  $200,- 
000  fireproof  building  in  West  23d  Street, 
New  York  City,  in  which  are  kept  their 
records.  Today,  there  are  on  their  books, 
520,000  cows  and  bulls  registered,  worth, 
perhaps,  $150,000,000.  They  employ  a 
small  regiment  of  examiners  to  insure  that 
the  blood  of  their  breed  is  not  mixed  or 
polluted  by  outside  blood. 

The  American  Guernsey  Cattle  Club  has 
its  registry  at  Peterboro,  New  nampshire. 
The  Holstein-Freisian  Association  has  its 
club  house  at  Brattleboro,  Vermont.  It 
has  eight  thousand  members  and  its  regis- 
try covers,  perhaps,  $150,000,000  worth  of 
cattle.  These  and  other  clubs  all  act  in 
connection  with  Continental  clubs,  etc.,  etc., 
but  not  one  dollar  is  spent  by  our  United 
States  Government  or  by  any  state  or  by 
any  association  to  see  that  the  blood  of  the 
*^ American  Baby''  is  protected  from  the 
imported,    unhealthy    mixed    blood    from 


HUMANS  NEGLECT  BREEDING  OWN  GET     243 

Ghettos  or  the  cellars  of  Europe  or  the 
Orient  filled  with  filth  centuries  old. 

In  the  Department  of  Agriculture,  at 
Washington,  D.  C,  there  is  a  sub-depart- 
ment, ^^The  Bureau  of  Animal  Industry." 
Every  one  of  the  departments  of  the  Ani- 
mal Industry  in  the  various  State  Colleges 
of  Agriculture  in  every  state ;  and  every  one 
of  these  Eegister  Associations  of  Domestic 
Animals  and  Barnyard  Fowl  and  Kennel 
Associations,  file,  yearly,  their  reports 
here ;  but  we  have  no  Eegistry  that  has  for 
its  object  the  up-breeding  of  pure  blooded 
American  babies.  Every  man,  woman  and 
child  in  every  town  or  city  in  France, 
Switzerland  and  Germany,  has  a  record  of 
his  or  her  birth,  life  and  death  kept  in  the 
Town  Hall,  a  real  Human  Registry,  but 
we  have  nothing  of  that  nature  here. 

Each  of  our  Custom  House  Officials  has 
a  book,  telling  only  what  foreign  Registry 
Association  of  Domestic  Animals,  Poultry, 
etc.,  they  are  allowed  to  accept.  But,  where 
have  we  a  Human  Registry  that  will  give 
the  pedigree  of  each  immigrant  and  his 
achievements  when  he  comes  into  our  coun- 


244  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

try!  Oh,  no,  for,  if  there  were,  in  ninety- 
nine  cases  out  of  a  hundred  those  life  his- 
tories would  shock  us. 

None  but  the  ignorant  or  fools  deny  that 
recognized  laws  of  animal  breeding  apply 
to  humans,  as  well,  but  custom,  the  tyran- 
nical master  of  men  and  women,  founded 
on  centuries  of  senseless  sentiment  and 
false  pruderies,  has  prevented  the  prac- 
tical application  of  these  laws  to  the  breed- 
ing of  a  great  race  of  men  and  women. 
Men  and  women  devote  their  best  energies 
to  improve  animals ;  and  the  same  men  and 
women,  experienced  in  anim^al  breeding, 
close  their  eyes  as  to  their  own  get. 

When  it  comes  to  the  human  family  and 
the  future  of  our  offspring,  we,  who  pride 
ourselves  on  our  cleverness,  fail  to  open 
our  eyes  to  see  what  is  to  be  seen  and  close 
our  ears  to  hear  what  is  to  be  heard — and 
all  this  in  the  20th  Century,  while  o«r 
boasted  civilization  is  sweeping  along  the 
path  that  leads  to  social  decay  and  oblivion, 
when  a  little  care  and  attention  would  turn 
the  tide  the  other  way. 


MUST  RECORD  SOCIAL  DISEASES        245 

MEDICAL     MEN     MUST     MAKE     A 

EECORD  OF  ALL  CASES  OF 

SYPHILIS. 

To  cover  up  and  conceal  the  hereditary 
and  social  ills  of  man,  laws  have  been 
passed  to  close  the  lips  of  the  medical  pro- 
fession about  the  family  failings,  diseases 
and  achievements.  We  do  not  improve 
the  breed  of  a  horse,  or  any  animal,  by 
concealing  his  ancestral  history  and  fail- 
ings. Then,  why  conceal  human  failings; 
why  not  let  the  life  of  man  be  as  an  open 
book?  Let  the  medical  profession  make 
man's  life  record  a  public  record,  just  as 
we  record  the  building  of  a  grand  struc- 
ture or  the  incumbrances  and  easements  on 
property  in  our  Halls  of  Record.  It  will 
do  more  to  breed  a  healthy  nation  and  to 
save  our  daughters  from  disease  and  mis- 
ery. An  innocent  girl  married  into  one  of 
the  oldest  families  of  New  York  to  find  that 
no  one  outside  of  their  distinguished  family 
doctor  knew  it  was  tainted  with  hereditary 
insanity;  that  some  one  of  his  family  was 
constantly  in  a  sanatorium  with  fits  of  tem- 
porary insanity;  and  that  in  other  branches 


246  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

of  the  family,  the  same  phenomenon  was 
occurring  and  had  occurred  for  generations 
back. 

France  saw  the  danger  of  this  years  ago 
and  passed  laws  making  the  concealment 
of  such  life  histories  quite  impossible.  To- 
day, we  all  see  how  like  a  Phoenix  she  has 
arisen  from  her  ashes.  Her  soldiers  today 
have  not  a  superior  in  the  world  for  cour- 
age, stamina  and  intelligence. 

Germany  did  the  same,  and  we  all  know 
with  what  energy,  courage  and  stamina  her 
soldiers  have  fought;  how  their  brainy 
Kaiser  has  rushed  them  from  the  East 
Frontier  to  the  West  Frontier,  or  to  the 
South  Frontier. 

THE    GEEMAN    KAISER  ^S    CONTRI- 
BUTION   TO    BENEFICIAL 
SCIENCES. 

The  German  Kaiser  was  once  the  great- 
est Ruler  that  ever  sat  on  any  throne.  He 
saw  that  syphilis  would  soon  undermine  the 
German  nation,  so  he  called  to  his  aid  Pro- 
fessors Erlich  and  Harta,  and  gave  them 
full  power  to  go  ahead,  at  any  cost  of  dis- 


GOVERNMENT  WELCOMES  HUMAN  CURS    247 

eased  life  or  expense,  and  make  a  discovery 
that  would  eradicate  syphilis.  When  they 
sent  out  to  the  world  ^^606^'  and  then  Sal- 
varsan,  they  gave  to  the  world  the  greatest 
boon  since  the  Christian  era.  They  made 
it  possible  to  eradicate  diseased  blood  and 
to  advance  the  breeding  of  healthy  men.  It 
is  a  crime  for  diseased  men  or  women  to 
marry. 

The  German  Kaiser  is,  unquestionably, 
the  ablest,  brainiest  and  most  energetic 
sovereign  that  ever  sat  on  any  throne  since 
the  world  began;  he  has  made  Germany 
what  she  is  today.  But,  before  this  dread- 
ful uncalled-for  war  is  over,  it  will  be  found 
that  this  great  man  is  a  victim  of  heredi- 
tary insanity,  which,  with  his  ambitions  for 
Germany's  advancement,  has  worked  upon 
his  mind  and  warped  his  judgment. 

It  is  not  my  province  to  discuss  this  sub- 
ject, but  to  give  credit  where  credit  is  due ; 
for,  under  the  Kaiser's  guiding  hand  and 
mind,  the  greatest  and  most  marvelous  sci- 
entific discoveries  of  late  years  have  come 
out  of  Germany ;  and  there  is  not  a  thinking 
intelligent  man  in  the  whole  world,  but  must 
take  off  his  hat  to  his  genius. 


248  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

OUR  GOVERNMENT  EXCLUDES  ILL- 
BRED   OR   UNSEXED   ANIMALS, 
EXCEPT     UNDER     A     PEN- 
ALTY,  BUT   WELCOMES 
HUMAN  CURS. 

The  United  States  Government  will  not 
let  you  import  into  this  country,  except 
under  a  heavy  penalty,  dogs,  pigs,  cows, 
horses,  rams,  chickens,  etc.,  unless  there  are 
attached  to  the  shipping  papers  the  health 
certificates  and  breeding  certificates  of  the 
Registry  of  the  Association  to  which  the 
animals  belong;  and  this  association  must 
be  recognized  by  our  Government  and  certi- 
fied to  by  the  Government  of  the  country 
from  which  the  importation  is  made. 

This  registration  certificate  sets  forth  the 
animaPs  number  in  the  Registry;  and,  if 
it  be  a  stallion  or  mare,  its  color,  marks, 
age,  etc.,  are  given  with  a  certification  that 
its  ancestry  are  all  of  pure  blood — no  mix- 
ture— and  every  animal  must  be  entire — 
no  gelding,  no  blank.  Otherwise,  it  cannot 
pass  the  United  States  Custom  House  ex- 
cept under  a  penalty.  With  some  animals, 
even  the  foreign  health  certificate  carries 


EXAMINE  EMIGRANTS  MICROSCOPICALLY  249 

no  weight ;  and  straight  to  the  Government 
Quarantine  Yards  they  go  to  be  watched 
and  inspected  by  onr  Government  veterin- 
aries. 

If  our  Government  passes  laws  to  insure 
only  pure  blooded  dogs  coming  into  this 
country,  why  do  they  open  the  gates  wide 
and  invite  in  all  the  human  curs  of  Europe, 
the  Orient,  and  the  rest  of  the  world, 
to  pollute  and  disease  the  standardized 
blood  of  the  Plymouth  Kock  Colony? 

Some  years  ago,  one  morning,  we  found 
the  Jersey  Coast  strewn  with  thousands  of 
bundles  of  grapevines,  perfectly  packed  and 
in  fine  condition,  washed  ashore,  as  we 
thought,  from  a  shipwreck.  I  took  pains  to 
investigate,  and  found  that  some  recog- 
nized Grape  Growers'  Association  had  dis- 
covered that  some  microbic  disease  had 
broken  out  in  the  vineyards  of  France  or 
Italy,  from  which  these  young  vines  were 
coming,  and  had  communicated  with  the  De- 
partment of  Agriculture.  The  United 
States  Government  had  sent  to  all  Custom 
Houses  a  contraband  order  on  all  ships 
importing    such    grape    vines;    the    con- 


250  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

signees  in  New  York,  having  received  a 
copy  of  the  ship's  manifest  by  fast  mail, 
discovering  that  they  had  on  board  these 
contraband  grape  vines,  had  sent  a  tug 
down  the  Bay  to  intercept  the  freight 
steamer  and  to  notify  its  Captain  that  if  a 
single  one  of  these  grape  vines  was  found 
by  the  Custom  House  on  his  ship,  the  whole 
cargo  would  be  condemned;  so,  before  en- 
tering port,  overboard  went  every  grape 
vine. 

Neither  our  Government  nor  these 
steamship  companies,  who  bring  diseased, 
feeble-minded,  ill-bred  specimens  of  human- 
ity to  our  shore,  have  a  medical  examiner 
with  a  microscope  to  select  out  and  throw 
overboard  those  humans  that  they  find  in- 
fected with  microbes  which  cause  infantile 
paralysis  and  other  diseases  of  which  we, 
until  lately,  never  heard.  Oh,  no;  for  the 
steamship  companies  get  five  dollars,  eight 
dollars  or  ten  dollars  per  head,  and,  in  many 
cases,  they  get  a  bonus  from  foreign  coun- 
tries for  removing  their  rotten  human  de- 
bris, just  as  we  pay  the  garbage  men  for 


DENIED  CHILDREN— GIVEN  PUPS        251 

calling  at  our  kitchen  door  and  removing 
our  garbage. 

Unfortunately,  our  dear  beautiful  coun- 
try is  looked  upon  by  these  foreigners  as 
the  proper  place  to  dump  their  diseased 
human  wrecks. 

Our  Government  protects  the  grape 
growers  from  germs  that  infect  only  vines ; 
but  they  do  not  protect  the  American  baby 
from  the  germs  bred  in  Ghettos  and  dark 
cellars  of  the  Orient. 

The  ^^ Pothouse''  politicians  are  delighted 
to  receive  these  foreigners  and  instruct 
their  Congressmen  not  to  interfere  with! 
their  landing.  Their  votes  are  valuable  to 
District  Leaders  ^4n  blocks  of  5," — more 
grist  to  their  mill. 

Any  intelligent  importer  of  old  masters 
will  tell  you,  that  we  have  no  beauty  of  face 
or  form  today,  that  compares  with  what 
existed  400  years  ago.  The  portraits  also 
indicate,  that  the  physical  and  mental  quali- 
ties of  our  highest  types  of  today  fall  far 
short  of  those  of  even  the  medium  of  by- 
gone days ;  the  cause  is  lack  of  breeding. 


252  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

CONCLUSION. 

The  Eugenic  Bureau  at  Cold  Spring 
Harbor,  Long  Island,  is  today  being  pri- 
vately consulted  by  various  people  in  the 
East,  and  the  time  is  not  far  distant  when 
every  great  city  in  the  United  States  will 
have  its  Eugenic  Bureau;  when  laws  will 
be  passed  that  doctors  will  have  to  enter 
in  the  Bureaus  of  Public  Record  the  dis- 
eases, ailments,  mental  and  physical  defects 
that  are  hereditary,  of  every  family,  just 
as  they  do  in  Germany  and  France. 

We  know  the  good  and  defective  charac- 
teristics in  the  horse,  dairy,  poultry,  pig 
and  other  families  of  domestic  animals.  We 
have  seen  what  such  information  has  done 
to  improve  these  breeds.  Then,  why  should 
not  like  information  be  recorded  as  to  the 
human  family,  so  that  the  present  and  fu- 
ture generations  may  take  advantage  of  it, 
to  make  our  human  family  the  best  bred 
instead  of  the  worst? 

We  employ  paid  legal  and  medical  ad- 
visers, paid  consulting  and  mining  engi- 
neers, in  fact,  no  intelligent  man,  nowadays, 
undertakes  any  great  step  in  life  without 


MENTAL   AND   PHYSICAL   HERITAGE      253 

securing  tlie  paid  services  of  some  expert 
in  that  particular  line. 

Then,  why  not  pay  for  the  services  of  an 
expert  scientist  to  look  up  genealogies 
and  give  advice  on  the  all  vital  questions  of 
life,  namely,  what  shall  my  children  hel 
Shall  they  have  health,  brains,  refinement, 
with  good  inclinations  and  good  habits, 
good  tendencies ;  or,  shall  they  be  born  un- 
healthy, brainless,  ill-mannered,  with  bad 
inclinations  and  vicious  habits'?  Most  peo- 
ple, even  when  they  purchase  a  horse  or  a 
bull,  consult  a  specialist  in  that  line. 

This  is  the  question  that  must  come  home 
to  each  and  every  young  man  and  young 
woman  who  contemplates  marriage.  With 
the  advance  of  science  today,  all  can  be 
foretold;  and  any  young  man  or  young 
woman  who  fails  to  take  advantage  of  this 
opportunity  before  marriage  should  there- 
after hold  his  or  her  peace.  Their  remorse 
will,  perhaps,  lead  them  to  see  that  their 
children  do  not  make  the  same  mistake. 

The  purpose  of  courts  is  to  secure  justice 
to  all.  There  are  courts  for  the  living, 
the  criminal  and  the  civil;  courts  for  the 


254  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

dead,  to  settle  their  estate  after  their  death, 
the  surrogate  and  the  administrator's 
courts ;  and,  to  look  out  for  the  interests  of 
orphans,  we  have  orphans*  courts.  There 
are  courts  for  juveniles,  courts  for  the  ir- 
responsible, where  all  may  have  justice 
meted  out  to  them,  but  where  is  the  court 
for  the  unborn?  Who  guarantees  to  the  un- 
born child  its  right  of  a  decent  heritage? 
The  most  fundamental,  the  most  inalienable 
of  all  rights  is  the  right  to  be  well  born ;  to 
have  perfect  health,  and  physical  and  men- 
tal force,  capable  of  development  The 
child  deserves  to  come  into  the  world 
sound  in  body,  sound  in  brain  and  sound  in 
morals  with  good  tendencies. 

How  can  these  things  be  guaranteed  to 
children  when  besotted,  or  soaked  in  al- 
cohol, or  syphilitic  men  and  women,  or  men- 
tally defective  men  and  women  are  allowed 
by  our  laws  to  marry  and  bring  into  the 
world  offspring  with  unhealthy  bodies,  per- 
verted intellects  and  handicapped  with  the 
worst  of  earth's  ills?  Is  society  doing  its 
duty  to  the  next  generation  when  it  allows 
this  to  happen?    Let  every  man  ask  him- 


A  BABY'S  PRAYER  255 

self,  am  I  honest  and  square  to  my  own 
name,  to  my  offspring,  to  my  wife  and 
to  the  State?  When  these  things  are  well 
understood,  common  sense  will  win  the  day 
for  the  cause  of  eugenics. 

There  are  enough  subnormal  babies  pro- 
duced by  accident  of  development  and  of 
birth,  where  every  possible  care  is  taken  by 
fit  parents.  It  is  an  absolute  defiance  of 
nature's  laws  to  expect  the  unfit  to  endow 
their  progeny  with  a  good  heritage.  Our 
duty  to  the  next  generation  will  not  be 
discharged  when  we  turn  over  to  them  our 
rich  soil,  great  cities,  national  highways, 
efficient  manufacturing  plants,  multitudes 
of  colleges  and  universities,  churches  and 
schools.  There  is  need  of  a  court  to  guar- 
antee justice  to  the  unborn,  to  guarantee  to 
every  child  the  heritage  of  a  sound  physical 
body,  the  heritage  of  a  strong  brain  and 
nerve  force,  and  the  heritage  of  good 
morals  and  good  tendencies. 

To  sell  my  colts,  their  heritage  must  be 
above  reproach,  and  they  must  be  regis- 
tered by  a  Board  that  guarantees  their  an- 
cestors, that  gives  their  achievements,  good 


256  THE  RIGHT  TO  BE  WELL  BORN 

or  bad.  Is  man  not  worth  more  than  a 
horse?  The  only  way  I  can  get  horses 
*^ worth  while"  is  by  mating  the  healthiest 
and  most  distinguished  individuals  of  the 
breed. 

The  myriads  of  unborn  babies  stretch 
out  their  tiny  hands  to  us  from  the  mystic 
future  and  plead  in  baby  voices,  as  before 
an  august  Court  of  Justice,  for  the  right 
of  decent,  healthy  and  normal  parentage, 
for  the  right  of  cultured,  healthy,  well- 
bred  parentage,  for  the  right  of  talented 
parentage.  Out  of  the  insistent  demands 
of  these  shadowy  babies  the  most  impor- 
tunate of  all  to  my  ear  is  the  one  which 
declares : 

^^Eefuse  to  give  me  birth,  or  else  let  me 
be  well-born. ' ' 

Will  not  this  generation  grant  this 
sacred  request? 

^^Blood  wiU  tell/' 


/ebst8r  Famiiv  Library  of  Veterin^y  Medicine 
ummings  School  of  yet&rinaiy  IVIedicine  at 
Lifts  University 
00  Westboro  Road 


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